Delegation--or empowerment--represents the essence of the supervisory task: getting things done through people. The terms are no different from each other; empowerment is simply delegation done properly. The process still fails for the same old reasons, and failure still causes the same kinds of problems. Delegation or empowerment involves authority; it is authority that is delegated, not responsibility, as commonly claimed. Under either name it is an imperfect process requiring subjective judgements and chronic risk. Although either label is acceptable--the few differences between delegation and empowerment are semantic only--the significant constant that must be present is a sense of task ownership on the part of the empowered employee

Empowerment helps creativity at work

I do not think I can empower enyone, but I can facilitate someone to empower themselves. This is an important starting point. To have power is to be able to let your will happen. A critical part of becomming empowered is to actually have the «space» to both let your will happen and simultaniously grasp your responsibility. That again means that to facilitate another persons empowerment of themselves is to give them the space to act through their own will and to trust their selfregulating sense of resposibility. This is tricky business to understand and set into motion if you have a tradition in the institution wanting to develope this type of change. It actually requires a great deal of training to make it work. I have worked with organisations with this goal and it is much more difficult than i appears. If you succeed, the reward is often big. Creativity, as you say, can be one such reward. Khalid aswad Layikh Cebo Daniel

Empowerment is about providing otherwise vulnerable populations the skills and opportunities to be engaged in the political process. It involves taking the time to train people, provide them leadership opportunities and to involve the community in the work. By involving the community directly in devising plans or policies that impact them, you are providing opportunities for empowerment. This takes much more time and commitment than administrative authority.

I see empowerment as more community based rather than individual based. Authority is more about an individual or institution. It may be bestowed upon someone whereas empowerment comes from the ground up...authority comes from the top down.

Managing authority is a common reality. Empowerment means something more comprehensive, the result of a process of maturation.

Empowerment is a collaborative process where administrative authority is a enforced one. When community get benefit in all three social, economic and political aspect it can lead to success in empowerment of the community. But in administrative process the political aspect is always ignored or suppressed in reality.