Leadership Issues - Empowerment of Employees - Essay Example

Internal commitment is developed when workers or employees remain committed towards a person, program or project for their own personal motives. Since the complete decision making authority and responsibilities of a work rests with the worker or employee empowered, the question arises as to whether in that case the position and role of a manager becomes irrelevant or not (Dubrin, 2008, p.204). Extensive research has been conducted on the subject and different researchers have brought forth different perspectives.

It is important to discuss whether employee empowerment calls for the complete removal of position of managers in organizations or they still stand to have their position and responsibility in directing group activities towards the attainment of organizational goals and objectives. In this study, a critical analysis is provided on the subject with particular reference to the management and leadership literature. The various views of researchers on the subject are complied and brought to the fore to arrive at a comprehensive conclusion.

‘Empowered employees’ negates the need for managers- Critical Analysis The debate between employee empowerment and the role of managers can be most prominently viewed with regards to the hotel industry. Most employees in this sector are trained by managers to handle the guest incidents happening at the spot along with good judgement which includes being promptly, professional and courteous. This is aimed at improving services delivered to guests and consequently their satisfaction level, creating a better working environment for employees and creating time for managers to focus on other tasks and managerial activities.

According to Brymer (2002) this is not only unusual and unnatural approach towards managing hotel activities but also surprising as the decision making authority accounts for the most important task that managers long for. At the first place the task for managing guests is quite a challenging task which could be difficult for workers or employees to manage. Researchers have regarded this as an indulgence in the way that employees would be inclined towards giving away too much without taking into consideration the costs or its impacts on the bottom line (Brymer, 2002, p.58). The argument has been countered by the fact that decentralization of decision making has been particularly successful in the quest services oriented organizations which includes hotels, restaurants and the like.

This success has gradually created a step by step framework which has been used by the hospitality sector for the implementation of employee empowerment programs. These programs have been implemented for long in the hospitality sector and have achieved considerable success also (Brymer, 2002, p.58). Researchers have emphasized on the existence of trust on the part of the supervisors and managers on their subordinates to empower them which determines whether empowering employees would be successful or not.

However, empowering employees to the desired organization responsibilities and decision making authority does not completely rule out the requirement or need for managers or the requirement of managerial activities though (Straiter, 2005, p.87). It is the managers’ responsibility to determine the competency, reliability and responsibility of the subordinates. Researchers like McAllister (1995), argues that this can be a complicated and uncertain process which