329. Over-Empowerment

Empowering your team members is your job. But over-empowerment doesn't mean you're doing a better job. To the contrary.

Jeff Matlow

Jun 30, 2025

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I talk a lot about the need to empower others. That’s because knowing how to empower others is really important if you want to lead a successful team.

The problem happens when you try to empower people, but you screw it all up.

This probably calls for a metaphor.

Imagine you’re baking chocolate chip cookies for me because you know how much I love them, and you appreciate the articles that I write, so you want to send me a gift of thanks. Hypothetically, of course. Let me know if you need the mailing address.

Your chocolate chip cookie recipe calls for 1/4 cup of sugar. Every time you make this recipe, you use a 1/4 cup of sugar, and everything always turns out perfectly.

Now imagine you convince yourself that, because the chocolate chip cookies are great with 1/4 cup of sugar, they’re probably going to be even better than great if you put a whole cup of sugar in them instead. In fact, by that math, the cookies should be 300% better, right?

Except they’re not. Because life doesn’t work that way.

Your cookies are gonna suck and nobody is going to be excited about them anymore.

That’s what happens when empowerment goes wrong - your culture is gonna suck and nobody is going to be excited about how you lead anymore.

You know what, I’ve got a short story about cell phones that I want to tell you.

When Flip Phones Were Cool

Remember when flip phones were cool?
Actually, that’s a loaded question. Don’t answer it.

Instead, bring your mind back to the early aughts, when mobile phone ownership was growing faster than Pinocchio’s nose at a fibbing convention.

Nokia was the big winner. They were leading the market by a long shot. In fact, they controlled over 40% of the global market share of cell phones. It seemed nobody could stop them.

Until 2007, that is.

That’s when a radical California computer company named Apple revealed what they called an iPhone - which actually wasn’t much of a phone, but that’s a whole different conversation that was had over here —> The Greatest Con

Apple’s iPhone seemed cool, but Nokia was primed to take them down. After all, Nokia had enormous R&D budgets, they had a greater global reach than any other company, and they had a seemingly loyal and humungous customer base.

Unfortunately, none of that mattered in the end.

Nokia’s biggest problem wasn’t their resources, it was their employee empowerment. They did too much of it.

Over-empowerment toppled Nokia.

How Over-Empowerment Killed Nokia

Nokia’s CEO believed in empowering his people. That’s good. Maybe he read my articles. Regardless, he clearly understood the IKEA Effect.

Unfortunately, the CEO believed in empowerment so much that he thought the more he empowered, the better his team would be. Essentially, he completely replicated that chocolate chip cookie sugar scenario we talked about earlier.

The CEO gave so much autonomy to every division that each department basically ran like its own individual company.

That may sound good on paper, but in reality, not so much. Here’s what happened to Nokia from this over-empowerment:

Internal competition: Every team became focused on its own department’s success as opposed to the company’s success.
Poor Communication: The teams didn’t work in harmony. Hardware teams built phones that didn’t work well with the software.
Lack of Unity: The software team built a product that ignored the constraints of the hardware.

In the end, it didn’t take long for Apple and Android to make Nokia irrelevant. Today, Nokia has about 0% of the mobile and smartphone market, give or take a few zeros.

All from over-empowerment.

Empowerment vs Over-Empowerment

I know, I know… after all this time telling you to empower your people, it seems like I’m now saying to pull back on the reins.

But to be clear, I’m not.
It’s a bit more nuanced than that.

Empowering people is important. You need to encourage your team members to figure out their own solutions to problems, to take more ownership of their work, and to make their own decisions (as is appropriate for their role). All of that empowerment is great.

The difference between empowerment and over-empowerment comes down to two basic things: oversight and alignment.

Oversight And Alignment

Empowering people without oversight is less about empowering and more about relinquishing your responsibility as a leader.

Don’t do that.

To turn this into another metaphor, empowering people with no oversight is like putting a bunch of puppies in a room and walking away. It won’t be long before a couple of them shit all over everything and create a mess so bad nobody wants to clean it up and nobody is happy about you being gone.

Maintaining oversight is your job. It’s part of the empowerment process. Don’t abdicate your responsibility.

And that brings us to alignment.

You can’t give your teams complete freedom unless you give them one clear and common direction.

Empowerment is about having a clear purpose and direction, and ensuring everybody on the team is headed toward the same ultimate goal.

Nokia didn’t do that.

Now they’re as good as gone from the mobile phone market.

The Symptoms Of Over-Empowerment

I’m pretty sure I got my point across here that empowerment is good, but over-empowerment is bad. So let me give you a few potential by-products of over-empowerment. If you see any of these on your team, consider it a warning signal.

Overconfidence

Empowering people can boost their confidence. That’s good. Over-empowerment can turn into overconfidence and arrogance. That’s bad. If you have an arrogant employee, maybe it’s time to reel in that rope.

Abuse of Authority

When people are empowered, it can sometimes go to their heads. When you over-empower them, they become that bossy mid-level manager that we all know and are frustrated with. Over-empowered people can destroy team dynamics and crush a company culture.

Decreased Accountability

If employees are over-empowered and feel like they can do whatever they want, accountability is one of the first things that disappears. If there’s lack of oversight, there will be a lack of concern for the overall success of the organization or the project.

More Mistakes

When you over-empower your people, they will make more mistakes more often. Even worse, you won’t know about the mistakes until it’s too late. That makes them look bad, it makes you look bad, and it quickly frustrates the rest of the team.

How to Not Over-Empower

Empowerment works when these things happen:

Your team understands where they're going, what they're doing, and why it matters to the company
They have the authority to do their jo,b and they’re clear on their boundaries.
They get consistent feedback to ensure they remain aligned.

So if you want to make sure you always avoid over-empowerment, here are the things you need to do:

✅ Set clear boundaries

✅ Make sure everybody is aligned on the same strategic goals

✅ Maintain accountability systems

As I’ve said before:

Empowerment without direction is abdication, not leadership.

Don’t be that person.

The Bottom Line About Over-Empowerment

Your people don’t need you to hold their hands. But they do need you to point them in the right direction and remind them when they’re going off-course.

Because the difference between a Nokia and an Apple isn’t talent or resources— it’s knowing when to let go and when to hold on.

Oh, and by the way, if I ever hear you describe your leadership style with the over-empowering term “giving people enough rope to hang themselves,” I’m so gonna tie your shoes together while you’re not paying attention.

Don’t over-empower your people.

Don’t let me down.

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