Bshs425 Empowerment Approach to Human Services Management

Empowerment Approach to Human Services Management

March 4, 2019

BSHS/425

Instructor Harold Dobbins  

Empowerment Approach to Human Services Management

Twelve essential principles define the empowering approach to social service management according to Hardina et al. (2007) (Lewis, Lewis, & Packard, 2012). In the working world today, there is a major increase in diversity and human service organizations are collaborating to discover ways to empower individuals, some organizations utilize one of many classical managerial theories such as bureaucracy, scientific management, universal management principles, etc. these empowerment approaches are utilized in organizations to inspire and urge staff as well as clients to be active members within the organization through team building and collaboration.

The Ideological Belief Systems

To clarify the ideological belief systems of a manager who espouses empowerment for the overall agency, staff members, and clientele, you should initially comprehend the contrast between ideologies and a belief system. Ideologies are defined as a form of social or political philosophy in which practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones. It is a system of ideas that aspires both to explain the world and to change it ("Ideology: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. ", 2019). A belief system is a set of strongly held convictions, life experience etc., if an individual focus on God, then it’s a religion. Another example of a belief system would be leaving in a higher power ("Belief Systems: Conservapedia ", 2016). Remembering the above description, the belief systems of the manager would need to encompass the belief that every individual has values and strengths and building on those qualities will create stability and development that will result in confidence.

Differences Between Horizontal and Top Down Organizational Models

According to (Watson, 2019), “A business in the traditional mold, vertical organizations feature well-defined leadership at the top of the organization whose influence filters down to middle managers and department heads. These middle managers then assign work to employees within their departments. Similarly, when work is complete, it goes back up the chain until it reaches a manager with sufficient authority to approve the work, which is then moved outside its original department to other areas of the company for quality assurance or production” (p.1). In contrast to vertical organizations, a horizontal structure focuses on skilled proficiency instead of management. Less distance between upper manager and the actual skilled employee (Watson, 2019). The field experience site I did my internship is a good example, there were coordinators, peers, medication providers etc. and so forth and everybody works with the site supervisors. It wasn't exceptional for the site manager to assist during busy intake days or with particular cases that presented issues. Also, there would be times some staff would be put in supervisory positions interacting with clients and employees.