Effective leadership through empowerment: a case study

Abstract

In recent year the topic of empowerment has gained much attention among managers. This thesis is a case study analysis of one Naval Hospital Commanding Officer, Captain William R. Rowley, who has a reputation in his community as an innovator and advocate for empowerment. It presents a model of Captain Rowley's leadership philosophy. This model was found to be consistent with empowering leadership strategies as demonstrated by the close fit with two theories of empowerment. Captain Rowley's leadership was found to result in the achievement of positive change and improvement at Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton and to be consistent with sound practices of management control. His leadership model was also found to be consistent with the basic tenets of TQL and has resulted in successful progress toward full implementation of TQL at the command. Based on the successes described in this thesis, it is proposed that this model is useful for Navy Medicine as a viable leadership option.