Reference no: EM132250752
Module Journal: Gaining Power and Influence
Read the Campus Life Problem: Gaining Power and Influence exercise found in the "FILES" tab on Canvas. Read chapter 5 in the text titled Gaining Power and Influence and complete the following journal. Your journal should be one double spaced page in length.
Share the following:
• Based on the scenario, what can Adam do to increase his power in the fraternity?
• What would be the best influence strategy to use in this scenario?
• When you think about both personal and positional sources of power discussed in the text, how might they apply in this scenario?
Campus Life Problem: Gaining Power and InfluenceAdam, a member of a campus fraternity house is from a small farm community downstate. He joined the fraternity to make new friends but now finds himself out of place among the "city boys."
Consequently, he keeps to himself, and hardly mixes with his "brothers." After trying hard to socialize him, the other members have assumed that he likes his privacy and have allowed him to remain to himself. Soon, he finds that he is being dumped on. He is always assigned demanding chores like gardening or cleaning, and hardly ever gets to participate in organizing social events like the Charity Dance or the Inter-Fraternity Basketball contest.
Adam performs his work diligently, but it pains him to see members who joined later getting to do interesting work like constructing the Homecoming Parade pageant, while he is asked to continue with the old chores. The irony is that Adam is a Fine Arts major and a good sculptor and can help the fraternity improve its ranking in the pageant competition. Bob is the only member somewhat close to Adam because they are from adjacent towns.
Adam tells Bob about his feelings one day, and Bob feels concerned. When he raises the question at an informal "bull session," other members are surprised. Most of the new pledges hardly know him, and the others say that they had always assumed that he enjoyed his work, as he expressed no complaints about it.