By Shae Hadden |
Bio
Several
years ago, a wise 93-year-old man named Hayden shared with me his
principles for living life “at the growing edge”. He had printed them
on cards, in the shape of a bookmark, and distributed them to everyone
who engaged in meaningful conversation with him. Today, as I’m
recovering from the first major surgery I’ve ever had, I was drawn to
reflect on a couple of them again. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I
shared them with you now:[
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Written by eldering at Fearless Aging
Tagged with:
choice
compassion
growing
health
letting_go
responsibility
I was speaking with a friend today about how we sometimes feel
‘disempowered’ in certain situations where people repeat their patterns
of the past and where we have no ‘accountability’ for the outcome. I
realized as we were talking that we generally look at ‘being empowered’
as a solution in our careers and personal lives—as the pathway to the
promised land that will deliver us from whatever circumstances are
challenging us in the moment. When we see teams of people creating new
possibilities and managing themselves to solve their own problems,
we’re seeing people who have empowered themselves moving in action.
We often use a
lack of empowerment
as a sweeping justification for all kinds of organizational and
relationship problems. The pursuit of empowerment can become an
impediment to change—effectively reinforcing or aggravating a person’s
or a company’s existing predisposition to the status quo. When people
start thinking empowerment as an
entitlement,
they complain about autonomy, about being left alone and about being
responsible for particular outcomes without the ‘authority to act’.
Although they say they need or want power, they often continue to
behave as if they are powerless. If others in the organization buy into
this view of entitlement, they start accepting whatever excuses are
offered for not delivering on commitments—a shared conversation that
effectively disempowers people and creates a habit of using excuses to
‘explain away’ their behavior.[
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Written by eldering at Personal Empowerment
Tagged with:
action
commitment
empowerment
entitlement
responsibility
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