strengthening others

This week i read chapter ten in skyhooks for leadership which dealt with ways to strengthen your employees through the power that is warranted to you as a manager. There were several sections throughout the chapter that I found helpful.... The first section of this chapter that i found really relevant was about assigning critical tasks to others. Managers possess a certain amount of power simply because of their title, spreading this power among the ranks by assigning employees tasks that are crucial to a projects completion makes employees feel that their work and time are valuable, it gives a sense of purpose as opposed to doing small mindless tasks all the time. Although delegating important tasks is an effective way to give power to others, leaders must keep up with the changing environment of their industry and not just simply sit back and oversee daily operations. Many studies of various management styles have shown that managers who refuse to delegate tasks to employees or reach out to others in any way are unsuccessful. An added benefit to sharing power was noted by Doug Schumer who was managing a small research group at Ohaus Scale Corporation; the group was to design and create a new product outside his area of expertise (applied physics). By delegating and allowing other members of the group to who were experts in various fields to obtain their own results and then report back to him what needed to be done to make it work was key in the new product's completion and success.
Most importantly what I got out of this chapter was that in order to strengthen others you not only need to share power, but you need to share information, while at the same time allowing people the freedom to complete tasks/objectives in their own way and when they do, be sure to acknowledge their accomplishments; make their success 'visible' to everyone in the organization.