Empowerment is a critical component of a Total Quality Management (TQM) system. Total Quality Management training that has been the most successful include a paradigm-shifting set of experiences for the managers in training which are, in turn, transferred to the job resulting in a highly effective and empowered work force. How many managers in your organization have a working paradigm that is consistent with the principles of TQM? What is your organization doing with and for the other managers who's paradigms are not working? Effective TQM training addresses, head-on, the managerial habits (paradigms) that are counter-productive to effective TQM. An effective model of management accountability will include performance standards - the characteristics of a paradigm in harmony with the principles of TQM, and a measurement tool for measuring whether a manager's paradigm is moving (shifting) towards empowering their work force. Conclusions from one year of tracking and reporting manager's empowerment behaviors, at McDonnell Douglas' C-17 Aircrew Training System Courseware Development, site in Norman, Oklahoma, will be drawn. Successful and unsuccessful empowerment strategies used by Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winners and non-winners will also be reviewed.