What is empowerment? Explain its benefits and disadvantages.

Empowerment is the process by which a leader or manager shares his or her power with subordinates.
Its benefits are:
-Empowerment reinforces member participation and growth.
-People have a greater sense of achievement,improved confidence and self-esteem and a sense of belonging.
-Speeds up reaction time and decision making and provides speed and flexibility,allowing quicker response to customers.
-Empowered employees are more likely to offer ideas,exercise creativity and develop more innovative processes and products than those who are not.
-Employees are more responsible,which leads to greater loyalty,trust and quality.
-It reduces operational costs by eliminating unnecessary layers of management,staff,quality control and checking operations.
-Empowerment reduces turnover and aids in retention.
Its disadvantages are:
-It can result in lower and inconsistent delivery.
-Empowered employees may also make changes in their environment that improve their work unit while negatively impacting another work unit.
-It typically comes with boundaries.
-Some individuals cannot handle or do not want the responsibility.
-Some managers avoid empowerment even when their organization embraces it because of fear of change and the unknown.