Empowerment
The Basic Idea
The term “empowerment” is increasingly used in contemporary communications, whether it refers to women uplifting other women in technology,1 supporting the COVID-19 vaccine industry,2 or taking action on your career goals.3 If empowerment applies to so many domains, does it mean the same thing in every context? At its core, empowerment is a construct that links individual strengths, help from community systems, and proactive behaviors to social policy and change.4
Empowerment refers to a value orientation of autonomy and self-determination, as well as a theoretical model for understanding the process and consequences of efforts to exert control over decisions that affect oneself, organizational functioning, or the quality of community life.5 Empowerment is commonly linked to strength and confidence, as autonomy allows people to take control of their choices and claim their rights.6 To this end, both self-empowerment and empowering others are important. There are different types and levels of empowerment, defined according to the contexts to which they apply.
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
– Maya Angelou, American poet and civil rights activist on self-empowerment
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.
