Impact of Power

10 Key excerpts on "Impact of Power"

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  The Manager as Politician

  • Jerry W. Gilley(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  TWO Understanding Power, Politics, and Influence in Organizatio ns The study of power, politics, and influence and its effects is critical to un- derstanding how organizations operate. The terms power and influence are often used interchangeably in the management literature; however, there are subtle, yet important, differences between these terms. For example, if an employee accepts a work assignment from you, that employee has been influenced by you. Power represents the capability to get someone to do something; influence is the exercise of that capability. Organizational politics can be defined as those actions taken within an organization to acquire, develop, and use power and other resources to obtain one's preferred outcome in a situation in which there is uncertainty (or lack of consensus) about choices. Organizational politics arise when different groups pursue differing goals, and/or goals are unclear or am- biguous. It also arises when organizational and individual effectiveness is difficult to assess or goal achievement is prevented due to environmental turbulence. Organizational influence refers to your ability to acquire the needed power to achieve results within the organization. It also includes the abil- ity to motivate others and to persuade them to engage in activities or pro- duce results they would otherwise not produce. Organizational influence 20 / The Manager as Politician sometimes refers to your ability to resolve conflicts, enhance communica- tions, and build collaborative, synergistic relationships. To become a success political navigator, you need to develop an un- derstanding of several critical components of organizational survival: (1) power, (2) power tactics, (3) political behavior, (4) political influence tactics, (5) political conflict, and (6) conflict management styles.

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  Organizational Power Politics

  Tactics in Organizational Leadership

  • Gilbert W. Fairholm(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  In this discus- sion, Handy, as do others, confuses the concept of power. Power is generic; influ- ence is one form power takes in getting others to comply. His insight that power is a definite resource, however, is relevant to this discussion. Much of the later discussion about power sources confirms and elaborates this concept. Kaplin (1964) defines the scope of power as the range of stimuli and the range of corresponding responses the power user affects. Kaplin defines power in measurable terms based on the scope of impact over people, material, or other resources held or controlled. For example, a chief executive leading an organiza- tion of 3,000 people has a measurably greater amount of power than one leading a group of 30 people. Similarly, a person who controls the time, money, tools, and equipment you need exercises more potential power over you than does the ELEMENTS OF A DEFINITION 9 10 ORGANIZATIONAL POWER POLITICS person who only controls tools. Kaplin refers to power as a specific capacity in a given situation, as a finite element of the situation. To assume that power is concrete, however, is to overemphasize its resource character. Power is not, strictly speaking, a commodity. We cannot say we own power in the same way that we own money or property. Power is one of the factors of the situation and the dynamics of the interpersonal relationship. The targets of our power use have impact on our total power capacity to the degree that they desire or ignore a power resource we control. The organization often functions as a kind of power broker. It dispenses power in the form of suzerainty over employees or resources or programs to those who want or need it in order to fulfill their individual goals. In this sense, we increase power by use. When we grant control over a portion of our work force to another, that person gets power. We also keep our power and, often, that power base is enhanced by the addition of another level of control (hierarchy).

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  Leadership

  Regional and Global Perspectives

  • Nuttawuth Muenjohn, Adela McMurray, Mario Fernando, James Hunt, Martin Fitzgerald, Bernard McKenna, Ali Intezari, Sarah Bankins, Jenny Waterhouse(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Ultimately, power is concerned with achieving something. As Salancik and Pfeffer (1977, p. 14) propose, power is ‘the ability to get things done the way one wants them to be done’. These definitions identify power in terms of outcomes. However, it is important to understand that the source of power is ‘related to one’s control over valued resources’ (Magee & Galinsky, 2008 , p. 351). This chapter identifies the relationship between leadership and power, shows how power can be used to benefit organisations, how toxic leadership develops, and then considers two largely marginalised areas of leadership and power, namely whether it is possible for women to reach equity with men in leadership. THE FOUNDATIONS OF LEADERSHIP POWER To properly understand the role of power in leadership, we need to first under-stand what the words mean. This is because power manifests in different forms and the concept of leadership varies in different cultures and circumstances. Although first devised over 50 years ago, the definition of power in management provided by French and Raven ( 1962 ) defines power as the capacity or potential to influence and to affect others’ beliefs, attitudes and actions. That is, those who have power possess the ability to control the actions of others and the outcomes in various circumstances. A leader is someone who can bring about a desired change in the behaviour of a group of people. It is important to distinguish between people who have power because of their position and those who have personal power (Bass, 1990 ). Position power is the result of having a position designated as a leadership role, such as an organisational manager. However, designated leadership positions with position power have often achieved this at least in part because of personal power.

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  Organizational Politics

  • Maleehah Gull(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Society Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Be that as it may, we trust that this will raise a ton of philosophical and exact questions. Focus, in this manner, the critical thing is what is of interest to the person. Nobody is powerless. Everybody, at one time out at one dimension or alternate, has sought to lose control. Some individuals succeed in exercising it significantly more than others and cone to be perceived as men of intensity or impact. Other areas tar expelled from this vantage position that they barely understood that in accomplishing certain personal objectives in their families, clubs, and workplaces, among friends, in becoming hopelessly enamored or in making an impression on someone and so on they also have been using or exercising power in some way. Such individuals would swear that they have no power and that there are others who could legitimately be called men of power impact. The last recognition might be valid, yet it is not really a counter to the way that everybody is pervaded with: the power drive. Power, without a doubt, is so ubiquitous, and intrinsic to our everyday actions that we scarcely acknowledge it is there until perhaps we feel the effect of the power attempts of others or we see a requirement for it. These are the complexities that make control a troublesome idea to grasp. Organizational Politics 222 Political researchers study the marvel of intensity by attempting to understand how it is composed both as a conduct inclination and an instrument of mantra. Society has numerous systems of action and that these systems of activity are also control centers and sub-centers or structures and processes through which control functions and is managed finally and casually. As an amass wonder, it is described by relationships of individuals characterized by social what’s more, individual pressures: consequently, as a gathering marvel, it exists formally and casually (Tronto, 2005).

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  The Undreaded Job

  Learning to Thrive in a Less-than-Perfect Workplace

  • Richard Brislin(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  7 Understanding Power in the Workplace INTRODUCTION As introduced in Chapter 1, a major theme of this book is that people who understand workplace dynamics such as cognitive processes, group formation, communication, leadership development and other issues will have a greater chance of job satisfaction and life satisfaction. In my own personal experience, understanding power and its attrac- tions to many people has been very important in my own efforts at workplace satisfaction. Power refers to influence in one’s workplace and community, the ability to have one’s preferences put into action, and the ability to help others with their work efforts in the expectations that these others will eventually return favors. If there is one substitute word for power, it is ‘‘clout‘‘ (Brislin, 1991; 2001). Some young people have socialization experiences that lead to an understanding of power. They attend dinner parties with their lawyer fathers and politician mothers and keep up discussions with influential guests. They attend fund-raisers for political candidates, volunteer for community activities where they meet movers and shakers, and become comfortable interacting with school peers when they have titles such as ‘‘student body president.’’ I had few such childhood experien- ces and so had to play ‘‘catch up’’ when I was well past 30 years old. One personal experience may be instructive. I once worked for an or- ganization where employees submitted proposals, and after a review some of the proposals would be funded. Decision makers could call employees and schedule meetings during which written proposals would be discussed. Meetings were scheduled only with proposals that the decision makers felt had problems in such areas as conceptualiza- tion, staffing, or predicted outcomes. I rarely was called to such meet- ings and received modest funding for my proposals.

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  Power in Business Relationships

  Dynamics, Strategies and Internationalisation

  • Dariusz Siemieniako, Hannu Makkonen, Gregor Pfajfar, Maciej Mitręga(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  1

  Power as the cornerstone of business relationships

  DOI: 10.4324/9781003095934-2

  1.1 Multifaceted power as a key building block of business relationships

  1.1.1 Introduction

  The power concept has played a central role in the development of marketing thought from early research on power in marketing channels (Gaski, 1984, 1986; Lusch, 1976; Siemieniako et al., 2021) and purchasing (Bonoma, 1982; Kraljic, 1987) to a more recent approach picturing power as a general phenomenon in inter-organisational relationships (see Meehan & Wright, 2012; Cowan et al., 2015; Johnsen et al., 2020). However, the literature on power in inter-organisational structures is deeply rooted in theories about power in society in general, which would seem to be highly appropriate as inter-organisational relations are embedded within wider social structures, and the demarcation between these two is always problematic (Czernek-Marszałek, 2020; Hagedoorn & Frankort, 2008; Ratajczak-Mrozek, 2017). In this chapter, we briefly present the meaning of power and its evolution in business-to-business literature, while at the same time we show how this meaning relates to the wider discourse in the social sciences.

  1.1.2 Power and power sources in business relationships

  The literature recognised early on that power goes beyond physically enforcing the actions of one person over another, and recognised the multifaceted nature of power in social relations. French and Raven (1959) proposed analysing power using several different types of power, that is reward, coercive, legitimate, referent and expert, while each of these “power sources” represent the potential for influencing the other actor. In 1965, this categorisation was enriched by a sixth source of power, namely informational power (Raven, 1965). French and Raven (1959) perceived power as a change in an actor’s behaviour or beliefs that result from the actions of another actor (French & Raven, 1959; Raven, 1965). The initial proposal by French and Raven (1959) has been revisited, and as a result certain specific variations of power bases have been proposed, such as personal and impersonal forms of coercion and reward, positive and negative forms of expertise and reference, as well as contract-based or norms-based legitimate power (Raven, 1992). Numerous further studies on inter-organisational relations using French and Raven (1959) categorised power sources into two groups; coercive and other power sources, in which expert, referent, legitimate and reward power were classified as non-coercive (e.g. Cowan et al., 2015; Frazier & Summers, 1984; Handley & Benton, 2012; Wilkinson, 1973; Wilkinson, 1996; Siemieniako & Mitręga, 2019). In a similar spirit, power sources were also divided into mediated and non-mediated power (Nyaga et al., 2013; Benton & Maloni, 2005; Siemieniako & Mitręga, 2019). In this second typology, the mediated power sources, that is legitimate, coercive and reward, are sometimes treated as negative forces that restrict the development of relationships (Benton & Maloni, 2005; Siemieniako & Mitręga, 2019). The distinct concepts of power based on French and Raven’s (1959) proposal and further developments are presented in brief in Table 1.1

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  Leadership in Higher Education from a Transrelational Perspective

  • Christopher M. Branson, Maureen Marra, Margaret Franken, Dawn Penney(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  Real Power and Influence 79 to attain specific goals or to engage in specific behavior; it is the capacity to influence and motivate others’. The common focus coming through in the above statements is the way in which leaders influence their followers to produce a desired outcome through the quality and characteristics of the relationships that they establish with their followers. Although there is no universally accepted definition of leadership, most tend to confirm this pivotal principle that leadership requires the power to influence others. For example, Yukl’s (2006: 8) commonly applied definition states that leadership is ‘the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives’. This, then, raises questions about the nature of the leader’s ‘power’ to influence. Indeed, how the leader sees the nature of their ‘power’ to influence determines their actual approach to leadership practice. The nature of this power in a transactional approach is very different to that in a transrelational approach. The first section of this chapter sets out to clearly describe this difference. Possible sources of power To more deeply understand the foundation of power within human relationships, the studies of Kreisberg (1992) may prove beneficial. Kreisberg’s work, Transforming power: Domination, empowerment, and education , highlighted the distinction between two sources of power: ‘power over’ and ‘power with’. He defined ‘power over’ as ‘a conception of power as the ability to impose one’s will on others as a means towards fulfilling one’s desired goals. It is the ability to direct and control and to manipulate and coerce if need be, sometimes for the good of all, most often for the good of the few’ (1992: 45). We experience this form of leadership power when trust is not openly shared in communication with others.

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  Organisational Behaviour

  • Gert Alblas, Ella Wijsman(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  To make sure that their power is not eroded, a manager must make efforts to improve their relationship with a subordinate as soon as possible after the confrontation, so that the other means of power can be reused. © Noordhoff Uitgevers bv POWER AND LEADERSHIP 213 6 § 6.5 Use of power for political purposes The sources of power that are attached to positions by an organisation are intended to be used in the general interest, to match the behaviour and contributions of employees to each other and to gear them to the organisational goals. It would be wonderful if all members of an organisation and all the groups within it were of one mind and collaborated harmoniously. However, the constant need for decision-making means that differences in ideas and interests among people and groups inevitably arise. People and departments can become competitors when it comes to making decisions about a course of action to be taken, the structure of the organisation, the division of resources, the appointment of staff, the promotion mechanism and the allocation of pay for performance. In this type of situation, the decision- making process and the exercise of power and influence are no longer concerned with the general interest but with personal and group interests. When people use their power in their own interests, they are engaging in power games. Robbins (2005) defines power games as follows: Power games are the use of power to infuence the ratio between rewards and costs as far as possible in one’s own (or the group’s) favour EXAMPLE 6.11 Power games The head of the Sales Department is retiring in six months’ time. One of the salesmen would like to be considered as a replacement for the job. To this end, he tries to present himself as a good salesman and a person with organisational qualities. He begins to highlight his successes and hide his failures.

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  Information Systems and Organizational Structure

  • Erwin Grochla, Norbert Szyperski(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  Still, participation in the design phase will provide a more detailed knowledge about its functioning. Putting the system into operational use refers to the conversion from a previous system to the new system. Influence during the last phase is mostly related to timing, speed of conversion, parallel operation etc. Its impact is largely limited to operational procedures. 134 Bo Hedberg, Anders Edström, Wolfgang Müller, Bernhard Wilpert 2.2 Power The concept of power has been defined and used in many different ways. The two main traditions are to use it either in a restrictive sense to mean coercion [18], or in a broad sense meaning the capacity to influence the behavior of others [5], We will use power in the more restrictive sense to mean the ability against oppo-sition to get one's way in an organization [1], either directly through one's own actions or indirectly through others. By preferring the narrower definition of power we want to forego a study of power phenomena in all possible situations: the decision implies that for our purposes power be studied only in the context of conflictual decisions. In that sense we use power in conflict situations as a selection criterion for decisions to be studied. The actual measures of power, however may very well cover also the broader definitions. In fact, it seems desir-able to also investigate the inter-relationship of various power measures within specific conflict situations. We find it interesting to observe conflict situation in at least two respects. First, situations in which the potential for conflict is large, such a resource allocation processes (e. g. budgeting R & D), and which are of great organizational signific-ance in the generation of change. Secondly, situations in which computer sys-tems will change the organization's reaction to conflict from one of bargaining to one of analytical problem-solving [11].

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  Power, Influence, and Persuasion

  Sell Your Ideas and Make Things Happen

  • Harvard Business Review(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Harvard Business Review Press

    (Publisher)

  • The executive conference room. When key decisions about strategy and resource allocation are made, who’s at the table? • Physical proximity to the CEO’s office. The old notion of the palace court continues in our business organizations. People with power usually have offices in the headquarters building close to the top executive’s piece of personal real estate. You can make a rough measurement of your own power, or your boss’s power, by simply checking these power indicators. You now understand the three main sources of power in organiza-tions: power of position, relational power, and personal power. Un-derstanding these will put you in a much better position to tap in to the power you need to get things done. Power Sources 31 Summing Up • The power or authority associated with formal position in the organization is observable at every level. It confers authority to act within a certain scope but is seldom sufficient to get things done. • Relational power is informal power that emerges from your re-lationships with others. Some of these relationships represent dependencies, which can either enhance or limit your power. • If you do a favor for someone else, a change takes place in your relationship with that person, who now owes you a favor in re-turn. This is the law of reciprocity at work, and it impacts rela-tional power. • Coalitions can increase your relational power. • Personal power is a function of one or many qualities: ideas, expertise, accomplishments, charisma, communication skill, and trustworthiness. These qualities impart power even when other forms of power are limited. • You should understand where power resides in the organiza-tion. Salary size is usually an indicator. 32 Power, Influence, and Persuasion

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