Question: Empowering Your Staff

After 5 years as a public health nurse, you have just been appointed as supervisor of the western region of the county health department. There is one supervisor for each region, a nursing director, and an assistant director. You have eight nurses who report directly to you. Your organization seems to have few barriers to prevent staff empowerment, but in talking with the staff that report to you, they frequently express feelings of powerlessness in their ability to effect lasting change in their patients or in changing policies within the organization. Your first planned change, therefore, is to develop strategies to empower them.

ASSIGNMENT: Devise a political strategy for successfully empowering the staff that report directly to you. Consider the three elements necessary in the empowerment process: professional traits of the staff, a supportive environment, and effective leadership. Of these things, what is in your sphere of control? Where is there danger of your plan being sabotaged? What change tactics can you use to increase the likelihood of success?