The myth of empowerment goes like this: That somehow, the way to empower people at work is to leave them alone to manage themselves. Sink-or-swim, reinvent-the-wheel, do it however you think it should be done, even though it's not up to you. What is empowering about any of that?

When it comes to boss-managing, the myth of empowerment plays out in two different ways.

First, YOU MIGHT think, if I am a high performer, then my boss shouldn't try to tell me what to do.

The truth is, no matter how good you may be at your job, everybody needs guidance, direction, and support in order to succeed. Why wouldn't you want as much guidance, direction, and support as you can possibly get? You don't want to waste your valuable time and energy doing the wrong things or doing the right things the wrong ways. You don't want to squander resources, inadvertently, or go off wildly in the wrong direction on a task if you don't have to. Right? Even if you know more about the specific task, responsibility or project than your boss does, you are not operating in a vacuum. You need to make sure your work is fitting into the larger scheme of the overall mission. You need to have clearly articulated goals with all the guidelines and parameters spelled out. You need to have concrete deadlines with clear timelines and reasonable performance benchmarks along the way. That's the only way to become and remain a high-performer. But if you are a high-performer, you probably already know all that.

But YOU MIGHT think, since I am a high performer, then my boss shouldn't try to tell me HOW to do what I do.

And yet, the truth is, if you really want to be creative at work, the first thing you need to know is this: Exactly what is up to you? And exactly what is not? So much of what gets done at work is just not up to you. Right? You need to know all the requirements of any task, responsibility or project before you can even think about being creative. You need to know all the specifications. It's only at that point where you know what is actually up to you after you know what's not. What is a matter of your own discretion on this work? That is the small space in which you can be creative.

What about work that is more open-ended? What about work where your job is to be truly creative? What if you are an 'ideas guy?' Well even then, you don't want to reinvent the wheel. Reinventing the wheel is false-innovation. The key is to learn all about the wheel, all the cutting edge best practices when it comes to the wheel, then put on your thinking cap and try to figure out what could be improved. That's real innovation. No matter what the issue is, step one should be to learn all the proven information, all the proven technique, all the proven wisdom. Then look for areas to apply your creativity to improve on them with real innovations.