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POWER AND POLITICS Overview

If you want to get things done in a group or organization, it helps to have power. As a manager who wants to maximize your power, you will want to increase others’ dependence on you. You can, for instance, increase your power in relation to your boss by developing knowledge or a skill that he needs and for which he perceives no ready substitute, but power is a two-way street. You will not be alone in attempting to build your power bases. Others, particularly employees and peers, will be seeking to make you dependent on them. The result is a continual battle. While you seek to maximize others’ dependence on you, you will be seeking to minimize your dependence on others, and, of course, others you work with will be trying to do the same. Few employees relish being powerless in their job and organization. It has been argued, for instance, that when people in organizations are difficult, argumentative, and temperamental, it may be because they are in positions of powerlessness, where the performance expectations placed on them exceed their resources and capabilities.

There is evidence that people respond differently to the various power bases. Expert and referent power are derived from an individual’s personal qualities. In contrast, coercion, reward, and legitimate power are essentially organizationally derived. Since people are more likely to enthusiastically accept and commit to an individual whom they admire or whose knowledge they respect (rather than someone who relies on his or her position to reward or coerce them), the effective use of expert and referent power should lead to higher employee performance, commitment, and satisfaction. Competence especially appears to offer wide appeal, and its use as a power base results in high performance by group members. The message for managers seems to be: Develop and use your expert power base!

The power of your boss may also play a role in determining your job satisfaction. “One of the reasons many of us like to work for and with people who are powerful is that they are generally more pleasant, not because it is their native disposition, but because the reputation and reality of being powerful permits them more discretion and more ability to delegate to others.

The effective manager accepts the political nature of organizations. By assessing behavior in a political framework, you can better predict the actions of others and use this information to formulate political strategies that will gain advantages for you and your work unit. Some people are just significantly more “politically astute” than are others. Those who are good at playing politics can be expected to get higher performance evaluations, and hence, larger salary increases and promotions. They are more likely to exhibit higher job satisfaction.

Power

Definition: Power refers to a capacity that A has to influence the behavior of B, so that B acts in accordance with A’s wishes.

• Power may exist but not be used. It is, therefore, a capacity or potential.
• Probably the most important aspect of power is that it is a function of dependency.
• The greater B’s dependence on A, the greater is A’s power in the relationship.
• Dependence, in turn, is based on alternatives that B perceives and the importance that B places on the alternative(s) that A controls.
• A person can have power over you only if he or she controls something you desire.

Concept of Power

Power -the ability to influence another person Influence – the process of affecting the thoughts, behavior, & feelings of another person Authority -the right to influence another person

Coercive Power:

• The coercive power base is being dependent on fear.
• It rests on the application, or the threat of application, of physical sanctions such as the infliction of pain, the generation of frustration through restriction of movement, or the controlling by force of basic physiological or safety needs.
• At the organizational level, A has coercive power over B if A can dismiss, suspend, or demote B, assuming that B values his or her job.
• Similarly, if A can assign B work activities that B finds unpleasant or treat B in a manner that B finds embarrassing, A possesses coercive power over B.

Reward Power:

• The opposite of coercive power is reward power.
• People comply because doing so produces positive benefits; therefore, one who can distribute rewards that others view as valuable will have power over those others.
• These rewards can be anything that another person values.
• Coercive power and reward power are actually counterparts of each other.
• If you can remove something of positive value from another or inflict something of negative value upon him/her, you have coercive power over that person.
• If you can give someone something of positive value or remove something of negative value, you have reward power over that person.

Legitimate Power:

• In formal groups and organizations, the most frequent access power is one’s structural position. It represents the power a person receives as a result of his/her position in the formal hierarchy.
• Positions of authority include coercive and reward powers.
• Legitimate power, however, is broader than the power to coerce and reward. It includes acceptance of the authority of a position by members of an organization.

Charismatic Power:

• Is an extension of referent power stemming from an individual’s personality and interpersonal style.
• Others follow because they can articulate attractive visions, take personal risks, demonstrate follower sensitivity, etc.

Expert Power:

• Expert power is “influence wielded as a result of expertise, special skill, or knowledge.”
• Expertise has become a powerful source of influence as the world has become more technological. As jobs become more specialized, we become increasingly dependent on experts to achieve goals.

PRINCIPLES OF POWER

• Power is perceived
• Power is relative
• Power bases must be coordinated
• Power is a double-edged sword (used and abused)

Consequences of power: Managers who have power benefit the most from organizational decisions, such as obtaining scarce resources for their department.

Contrasting Leadership and Power Consequences of Power

Leaders use power as a means of

attaining group goals. Leaders achieve goals, and power is a means of facilitating their achievement.

• Differences between Leadership and Power:
• Goal compatibility:
• Power does not require goal compatibility, merely

dependence.

b. Leadership, on the other hand, requires some congruence between the goals of the leader and those being led.

• The direction of influence:
• Leadership focuses on the downward influence on one’s followers.
• Leadership research, for the most part, emphasizes style.
• Power does not minimize the importance of lateral and upward influence patterns.
• The research on power has tended to encompass a broader area and focus on tactics for gaining compliance.

Dependency: The Key to Power

The General Dependency Postulate:

• The greater B’s dependency on A, the greater the power A has over B.
• When you possess anything that others require but that you alone control, you make them dependent upon you and, therefore, you gain power over them.
• Dependency, then, is inversely proportional to the alternative sources of supply.
• This is why most organizations develop multiple suppliers rather using just one.
• It also explains why so many of us aspire to financial independence.
• Importance
• To create dependency, the thing(s) you control must be perceived as being important.
• Organizations actively seek to avoid uncertainty.
• Therefore, those individuals or groups who can absorb an organization’s uncertainty will be perceived as controlling an important resource.
• Scarcity
• A resource needs to be perceived as scarce to create dependency.
• Low-ranking members in an organization who have important knowledge not available to high-ranking members gain power over the high-ranking members.
• The scarcity-dependency relationship can further be seen in the power of occupational categories.
• Individuals in occupations in which the supply of personnel is low relative to demand can negotiate compensation and benefit packages, which are far more attractive than can those in occupations where there is an abundance of candidates.

What Creates Dependency?

Political Behavior in Organizations

Many definitions focus on the use of power to affect decision making in the organization or on behaviors by members that are self-serving and organizationally non-sanctioned. We shall define political behavior in organizations as those activities that are not required as part of one’s formal role in the organization but that influence, or attempt to influence, the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within the

PERSONAL POWER MANAGEMENT

organization. Politics is a fact of life in organizations because organizations are made up of individuals and groups with different values, goals, and interests. This sets up the potential for conflict over resources. Resources in organizations are also limited, which often turns potential conflict into real conflict. Also, gains by one individual or group are often perceived as being at the expense of others within the organization. These forces create a competition among members for the organization’s limited resources. Finally, the realization that most of the “facts” that are used to allocate the limited resources are open to interpretation creates political behavior. Because most decisions have to be made in a climate of ambiguity, where facts are rarely fully objective, and thus are open to interpretation, people within organizations will use whatever influence they can to taint the facts to support their goals and interests.

Information and Power

Control over information flow

Based on legitimate power

Relates to formal communication network

Common in centralized structures (wheel pattern)

Coping with uncertainty

Those who know how to cope with organizational uncertainties gain power

Organizational Factors that Contribute to Political Behavior

• Low trus
• Role ambiguity
• Democratic decision
• Self-serving making senior managers
• High performance
• Unclear pressures evaluation
• systems resources
• Zero-sum allocations
• Prevention
• Forecasting
• Absorption

Managing Political Behavior

• Maintain open communication
• Clarify performance expectations
• Use participative management
• Encourage cooperation among work groups
• Manage scarce resources well
• Provide a supportive organizational climate