✍ Blog HuqPosts
Leadership Learning with Dr Rozana™
© Copyright Dr Rozana Huq. 20 April 2026
Why should you learn about Employee Empowerment?
If your organisation is a quality organisation striving to be excellent or applying for
quality awards, pursuing TQM (Total Quality Management), then as a leader, you
already know the importance of employee empowerment. It’s well documented in all
Quality Award application forms.
But, let me alert you – YOU CANNOT EMPOWER IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW.
This is the fundamental reason why you should learn about employee
empowerment.
It’s only through clarity of understanding that leaders can learn about employee empowerment.
In my blogs, Leadership Learning with Dr Rozana™, I am fully committed to sharing
knowledge and helping you get through the pain points in employee empowerment:
Pain points.
➡️ Lack of knowledge and understanding of what employee empowerment is.
➡️ Lack of a framework on how to implement it.
➡️ No focused communication strategy to get people on board.
➡️ Employees don’t feel a sense of belonging – they feel ‘alienated.’
Why should you learn from me?
Employee empowerment is a subject that I have studied deeply, researched
extensively.
During my doctoral research in the UK, I interviewed 235 people from senior, middle
and junior management, including people in non-management positions, which gave
an advantage to understand the subject deeply from the perspective of people
from both management and non-management positions, at the grass-roots level.
The case studies are valuable references for learning organisations, as to what worked
and what did not, when these organisations went down the empowerment route.
I taught at Universities for the last decade, and gave several presentations on
employee empowerment at Universities, conferences, including businesses,
private and non-profit organisations. I am a Routledge author and have also published and written books and
journal articles about employee empowerment and created a framework for implementation.
In my blogs, I will share my research findings, my own observations, and reviews of
literatures.
I could not let important conversations about people’s feedback from the qualitative interviews and focus
groups stay inside my leather-bound thesis. It needs to be shared; their voices need to be
heard. After all, an outcome of empowerment is that people’s voices are heard.
My research has made a notable contribution to knowledge in this area of employee
empowerment, as observed by Professor Wilkinson. https://www.rhmleadership.com/testimonials
Professor Adrian Wilkinson (Director, Centre for Work,
Organisation and Well-being, of Griffith University) read my book, ‘Employee Empowerment the rhetoric & the reality’ and remarked: ‘Rozana Huq has made an important contribution to the subject of employee empowerment with this book’ (Huq, 2010; p.v).
Read more reviews: https://www.rhmleadership.com/book-reviews
Lack of knowledge and understanding of what employee empowerment is.
There are concerns in the management literature about the lack of knowledge of employee empowerment, not
only at the conceptual level but also at the practice level (Conger and Kanungo, 1988). It creates confusion in
organisations. Employees are unsure what they are supposed to do!
An in-depth understanding of employee empowerment means that organisations can move forward with
confidence, knowing what they want to implement, and being aware of the pitfalls.
A review of the management literature reveals that employee empowerment may mean more than one thing,
and to cluster these together, so that they are not lost, I have described them as ‘themes’ in Employee
Empowerment and created a framework for implementing it (Huq, 2010; Huq, 2016).
The framework can enable leaders to learn about the ‘themes’ and know what to do to make the transition to
empowerment for everyone. This is the execution of the employee empowerment strategy.
It’s at the execution level that most employee empowerment fails.
No focused communication strategy to get people on board.
If the organisation is coming from a ‘command and control’ culture, as was one of my case studies, then it is
critical to have a focused strategy.
If people are not involved or consulted right from the beginning, at the conceptual stage, then the difficulty is
getting people on board!
Instead of empowering, the organisation is ‘disempowering’ its people.
Employees don’t feel a sense of belonging – they feel ‘alienated.’
Strengthening ‘sense of belonging’ in people starts with awareness.
The more a leader understands what drives behaviour in embracing change, the more effective the change
process and implementation will be.
Employee empowerment needs full cooperation from people. You can read more in the ‘Research Findings’ (Huq, 2016).
References
Conger, J.A. and Kanungo, R.N. (1988); The Empowerment Process: Integrating Theory and Practice, Academy of Management Review, 13, 3, pp. 471-482.
Huq, R. (2010); Employee Empowerment the rhetoric & reality. Triarchy Press, UK, Devon.
Huq, R. (2016); The Psychology of Employee Empowerment. Concepts, Critical Themes and a Framework for Implementation. Publisher Routledge.
Wilkinson, A. (1998); Empowerment: Theory and Practice, Personnel Review, 27, 1, pp. 40-56.
To learn more:
➡️ Fill in the contact form and send your request.
✍ Blog HuqPosts
Leadership Learning with Dr Rozana™
© Copyright Dr Rozana Huq. 20 April 2026
Leadership Learning with Dr Rozana™ is written by
Dr Rozana Huq
Founder and Director
RHM LEADERSHIP
➡️ Empower ➡️ Inspire ➡️ Lead