Empowering versus Enabling

Whether we are in an employer/employee, marriage or parenting relationship, most of us from time to time, struggle with balancing empowering versus enabling dynamics. That’s a big sentence and a bigger concept. The truth is that I’m just a 62 year old rancher with no background in psychology. All I have to offer is life experience and my own successes and failures. 

I think it’s a worthy conversation to have, even or especially if only with ourselves. I’ve come to realize that I have at times hired people for the wrong reasons. We all take on help for selfish reasons, and frankly that’s absolutely okay. If we didn’t need help with certain tasks, why add cost and complexity to our operations? The problem comes when we hire people based on who we hope they can be, rather than who they have already shown themselves to be. Behavior is a language and if we ignore that language, chances are great that we will end up dissatisfied with the results. I know that previously, I’ve wrapped hiring available but ultimately unsuitable people in positive terms like “giving them a chance”, “wanting to believe in people” or  “maybe they just need extra tools to succeed”. The truth is that good people will succeed without being set up to a feasting table, and poor candidates will fail despite being given every tool or opportunity. 

I’ve finally learned that my way of approaching hiring for our ranch has not worked for me, so I’m changing my way of doing business. I’m adopting a “prove yourself to me before I buy” approach going forward. I’ve realized that it’s easier to do things myself or hire them done by real professionals than leaning on the promises of anyone who wanders down my road. I think it’s probably always been tough to find good help, especially in agriculture; and the new bar I’ve set won’t make the pool of candidates deeper; but perhaps, it will make it of better quality. I know that many of my colleagues in agriculture depend on folks who are in our country illegally to deepen the pool of qualified candidates; but, I sincerely believe that if one talks the talk of secure borders and all that entails, one must be willing to walk the walk. Walking that walk in our business means more cost and fewer options; but ultimately, I cannot  honestly advocate for a value if I don’t live it. 

Moving on to other relationships that can be improved by discerning between empowering and enabling, I think back to my own marriage. I feel fortunate that Fred and I met a bit later in life, I was 30, and he was 32. He’d been previously married and we both had some realistic life experience in our back pockets. We took a couple years to get to know one another and dig into issues before marrying and by the time we did, both of us felt very grateful to have found a compatible partner. We lived through 26 years of marriage, filled with good times and bad, and consistently tried to support each other the best ways we knew. We both made mistakes, but I think our overarching belief that our marriage vows were not just between us, but a covenant between us and God, kept us at the table, always willing to retool and never give up. We both believed that failure was never an option for our family. It helped that we both chose wisely in each other and worked diligently to always treat each other kindly. While no marriage or relationship is perfect, we put considerable effort into ours and when we finally parted at his death, I know it was with deep love, peace and gratitude for each other; the process we worked, and the shared life we created.

Parenting is for me and most of us, the most profound place where the dynamic between empowering and enabling can get blurred. The all-encompassing love we feel for a child is a force that can lead us down a slippery path if we aren’t very clear about our own basic beliefs and values. We all want what is best for our children. It’s incredibly hard to see them in pain, in trouble or struggling. More than any other relationship, it is easy to delude ourselves that we are helping when we deliver our children from pain or consequences rather than letting them suffer and then stand back up. In dark times, they may cry out for help, and blame us if we don’t come to their aid. Our job is to discern when and how much aid is helpful or if allowing them to struggle is necessary to their ultimate growth and survival. 

I sincerely wish I had all the answers; I obviously don’t. What I do know is this…we learn from every experience we have and we learn the most from our most difficult experiences. I feel fortunate that my relationship with my daughter is relatively free from major trauma. We get along and work pretty well together. I’ve had to work hard and be very mindful to step back and let my adult child be an adult. If she needs or wants my help, she will ask. If she doesn’t, I have to have the confidence that her dad and I have taught her where and how to get the resources she needs. Boy, is that tough! Sometimes “helicopter mom” just flies out of my mouth before I can catch her and bring her back to the hanger. I apologize when that happens and I realize that I’ve set our relationship back a few feet. All I can ever say to her or to myself is “I’ll try to do better”. 

Trying to do better is all any of us can do. Tough love is called that for a reason. I’ve found that the greatest gift I’ve given myself in the last five years is practicing “tough love “ on myself first. That doesn’t mean being cruel to myself or letting negative self talk rule my days; it means holding myself to account. It means giving myself a well deserved pat on the back when I get something right, and being honest, and self aware in all accounts, especially when things go wrong; owning my part in failures and being willing to learn from mistakes so that I don’t repeat them. I’m a work in progress and as far as being an evolving creature, I’m pretty sure I’m somewhere between still dragging my knuckles and gingerly staggering upright. I’m pretty sure I’ll never get to a stage where I can strut around in high heels…but let’s face it, where I live, fancy red soled heels mired in a cow pie have never been a great or practical look anyway. 

Kris Stewart is a rancher in Paradise Valley, Nevada.