Student Services

Empowerment in Teams

When leading a team and working in collaboration with others it is essential that all members of the team feel that they belong in the team, their contributions are valued, and that they are invested in the project outcome. Empowering other team members also supports the teams longterm success by supporting each team member in developing valuable skills to support your shared goal. Empowering members of your team can apply to work happening in research labs, student organizations on campus, in-class project groups, and many other settings.

Utilizing the Team Empowerment Quick Guide, examine different strategies and practices that can be used to share power within members of a team. Then, take a moment to reflect on the following questions to the context of a team your are currently a part of:

1. What steps has your team taken to foster a community and trust among the members?
2. What knowledge and skills does each individual bring to your work? How are you utilizing their expertise?
3. What do decision making process look like and how does everyone have ownership in the project?
4. What steps could YOU take to empower other members of your team?

Team Empowerment Quick Guide

Advocating for Yourself and Others

“Whether it's a right or a privilege or a choice or an obligation, it doesn't really matter; it's all about perception. Because what is a right up close, can be perceived as a privilege from afar.”

Based on our individual lived experiences, it is easy to take things for granted in our lives that not everyone has access to - and vice versa. If you grow up always having school off on your religious holidays it may not occur to you that this isn't a given for many other people. If you can go to a restaurant and don't have to this about if the doorway will be wide enough to get a power chair though, you might not realize that this is something that other have to think about a lot. As leaders, when you see these inequities you have a responsibility to advocate for the impacted individual (including when it is you).

The guid below offers some quick tips in effectively advocating for yourself and others. Apply these tips to one of the case studies about advocating for yourself and one of the case studies about advocating for others.

Advocacy Quick GuideSelf Advocacy Case Studies Advocating for Others Case Studies

Five Steps to Becoming an Advocate

Advocacy represents one way of empowering others around you. Joseph R Campbell discusses five steps that can help everyone to become an advocate. 

Related competencies:

Compassion Resiliency Social responsibility

See all competencies