Background: Nurses are expected to empower their clients, but they cannot do it if they feel powerlessness. World Health Assembly has recommended its member to design some programs for strengthening and promoting their nurses. The empowerment process has usually been described from an organizational starting point. In the present study, empowerment is approached from the individual nurse’s point of view. This study was achieved in nurses working in Shaheed Beheshti, Tehran and Iran Medical Science universities in 1381-82.

Materials and methods: We chose the grounded theory approach for analysis the participants’ experience and their viewpoints regarding the concept of professional power in nursing. Purposeful sampling and semi-structured interviews and observation methods used for data gathering. Constant comparative analysis method used to analyze the data. Data gathering did continue till the data saturation occurred.

Results: The study population included 27 females and 11 males with the mean age of 40.8±8.3 years and mean period of employment of 19.3 ± 8.1 years. Five categories emerged including application of knowledge and skills, having authority, self-confidence, being supported, and unification.

Conclusion: Empowerment is a multi dimensional process that is affected by personal and environmental factors. It seems that the emerged categories could use for developing an empowerment model for nurses. An experimental study is suggested for testing the results of this research.