What is empowering?

Hi there, and welcome back to the TRUE Leaders Programme. This video is the first of the final part of the programme, which is focusing on Empowering. So like we have done with the other areas, the first part of that is helping us understand what does empowerment mean to us. What is empowering?

So, when we are defining empowerment, it is about authority or power that is given to someone or something. There is some kind of power exchange. But what do we mean by power? What does that mean?

So, I looked up the definition of power to help me understand that a little bit further. It talks about the ability or capacity to do something in a certain way. So just to act in a certain way or do something in a certain way. So the ability to enact that in the way that we choose to do so. Or the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events.

So, it is something about influence as well and having power or some element of control possibly over that. And this is an interesting one because I think we can often think about someone or something having power without really understanding what that means, and sometimes I think that is a subconscious thing. Sometimes we talk about, oh, well, it is up to them. Or we feel like something is being done to us and we actually end up giving our power away and we will talk about that a little bit more when we come on to empowering ourselves and empowering others. But it does help when we think about the definition in my opinion to think about that power dynamic, who holds the power and why, and is that feeling right? Do we want to give our power to someone else? Sometimes we do. Sometimes we want to give our power to something else and sometimes you want to take responsibility and we want to take it to empower ourselves to do things in a certain way or to act and behave in a certain way.

So, what does empowerment mean to you? What does it mean to be empowered? And what does it mean to empower others? What kind of words are coming up for that. Is it around confidence? Is it around ability? Is it around responsibility? What does it mean to think about when we have power or when we give power? What is it about?

We will talk a little bit about the power exchange and the power dynamic, and who holds the power or what holds the power in the later videos. But for now, I just want you to really think about what does that mean to you? I have got a jumper… actually maybe I should have worn that for these videos… I have got a jumper which says "empowered "and it feels like quite a strong word for me. When I feel empowered, I can feel myself holding myself differently. And it feels like it is coming from a place of strength, coming from a place of certainty, coming from a place of confidence.

But what does it mean to you? What does power mean? There is no right or wrong answers as with any of the programme here, but it would be really great for you to spend a little bit of time thinking about what does power mean to you? And what does it mean to feel empowered or to empower other people? You might want to think about a time when you felt incredibly empowered, or a time when you know that you have empowered someone else, and the impact of that, maybe the benefits of that.

So, just spend a little bit of time thinking about that. Reflect on that. Jotting down some notes if it feels appropriate about what that means to you. And when we come back in the next video, we will be focusing on empowering ourselves. And this is one of my favourite topics so I am really looking forward to that one. But for now, chat to some other people, do a little bit of research or just drop into your heart and think, OK, what does it mean to me? What does it mean to feel empowered? And enjoy that and I look forward to seeing you again in the next video when we start to think about empowering ourselves.