The Thinking Behind The Tweet

We often hear advice like, "You should empower your people, provide them autonomy, give them decision-making authority, and get them to take responsibility". 

That's not the right mindset. We should not see ourselves as agents who 'empower' people or 'give' people things like autonomy: we do not transfer energy or power from us to others.

People have, within them, all the energy and power they need. At best, we can help them understand their energy and power and ensure we do not block their efforts to use their energy and power.

We can help people by showing them how to 'un-entangle' the energy and power within them. One good way of doing this is leading by example.

[And, we should be clear about another thing: 'delegation of authority' is not 'empowerment'.]