But that is not yet the experience of employees by and large. According to the UK Skills Survey, over the 1990s there was a decline (across all industries) of around 14% in the proportion of employees who felt they had great influence over how they did their work.
Bad news for workers, certainly, but bad news for organisations too: influence is a major driver of engagement, which in turn links to discretionary effort, innovation and customer experience. What is more, this seems to be a rather British phenomenon. For example, a Eurofound report shows that "over the past 10 years, workers in the Netherlands increasingly report more decision-making power in their work".
Why might managers and leaders be behaving in ways that drive down autonomy when there is so much evidence showing it to be a good thing? A decline in levels of trust at work might be one such driver – could it be that tales of greed, corporate scandals, short termism, the ravages of global competition and unethical behaviour of leaders act to lower our trust?
As trust is a mutual construct, maybe employees' lack of faith in their leaders means they are less likely to exhibit all those characteristics that make empowerment possible – engagement, integrity, loyalty and so forth. With a disillusioned workforce, managers may respond by imposing more control. The result is a downward spiral of diminishing trust and autonomy. It is also plausible that other HRM trends have worked against our desire for empowerment. The growth in performance management and the general preoccupation with poor performers drives metrics and targets and monitoring and evaluation are a forensic preoccupation that rips out empowerment before it can take root.
However, it is not all gloom. Some recent and rigorous research on outstanding leadership has also shown that the highest performing leaders in some of the UK's top companies understand the power of empowerment. These are leaders who have no desire to control. They actively seek to devolve power, influence and initiative at every opportunity, because that frees them to focus on the long term, to build capability in their organisations and to lay the groundwork for trusting, meaningful relationships.
This research shows that the best leaders buck the disempowerment trend. Where good leaders drive performance by focusing on targets and metrics, outstanding leaders focus on people – understanding that great people will drive great performance. The best leaders marry rhetoric and reality in the sustainable pursuit of excellence and we clearly need a lot more of them. Some judicious investment here in shifting leaders from good to outstanding can be repaid tenfold by unlocking the contribution of individuals and teams.
Penny Tamkin is associate director at the Institute for Employment Studies
