Empowerment and Entitlement

Empowerment leads to growth. Enablement leads to entitlement.

As a parent, I often think about how I can empower my children to grow. Much of that empowerment requires me to get out of the way and let them experience the world for themselves. However, empowerment isn’t unintentional; it requires boundaries. Those boundaries should actually create more autonomy, not less. Beyond parenting, I believe great leadership requires elite empowerment. Organizations that lack empowerment lack the capacity to make quick decisions and often stifle the creativity of their people.

While empowerment is largely seen as positive, enablement doesn’t have the same reputation. When parents enable their children, it can lead to addiction, a lack of independence, and an inability to function at a high level. Most of us have witnessed detrimental enablement. On the other side, enablement for entitlement can actually be extremely effective inside organizations. For example, a sales enablement function within an organization can entitle its people to get more sales. Entitlement, which often also often gets a bad rap, can actually unlock potential. Think about it this way—if I feel entitled to get something it can mean that I feel as though I have everything I need in order to get what I want and need. Entitlement on its own is not inherently negative; think of feeling entitled to have basic rights (i.e., I am entitled to vote). 

Perhaps we need to be enabled to be entitled in order to be empowered to grow.