However, a carry-over of the leader-follower model from the industrial era remains for many organisations and societies. In a leader-follower model, power is exercised top-down.
An alternative approach is the leader-leader model where work is a collegial effort and the intelligence of many is harnessed to solve problems together.
Moving from a leader-follower to a leader-leader model shifts leaders and individuals alike from a position of entitlement to one of empowerment, accountability, and responsibility.
Transitioning to a leader-leader model changes an organisations DNA, impacting leadership and culture along with standards, structures and performance systems.
This transition is also an individual one, where individual self-control systems such as values and beliefs along with natural motivations, needs and wants shift along a continuum from disempowered to empowered.
There are psychological benefits derived from empowerment, namely increasing self-worth, knowledge, control and self-actualisation.
From a management perspective the benefits come from increasing employee knowledge, information and resources to take greater ownership.
From a change management perspective the benefit is in attracting people to want to change, rather than forcing change.
Modern leadership speakers see the benefits of empowerment as making everyone feel that they are important to success, that they own the organisation and can make a difference. These speakers also position empowerment at the heart of team building and the realisation of individual and organisational potential.
Transitioning to a leader-leader model requires investment, such as participation in decision making which takes time as does change. However, the cost of retaining a leader-follower model can be even greater, manifesting as employee attraction and retention challenges and poor change adoption and resilience.
