Power and Influence

Leadership has been distinct as the capability to authority a group toward a target; power is the facility to influence, period. There are three main areas to look at when we think about power. These are: the power, the role of dependence, and government.

Where Does Power Come From?

French and Raven are attributed with the early attempts to explain where control comes from. They developed a list of five source of power within organizations.  These are: coercive power, which depends on fear; reward power, from the capability to give out things of value; expert power, or pressure because you have special skills or knowledge; legitimate power, which you have because of your position in the company; and referent power: power you have because people regard and respect you. As a manager, think about where your power comes from: Coercive power relies on the fact that public fear you, and reward power is only effective so long as public value the rewards you have to offer. Legitimate power relies on your rank in the company hierarchy, and current events such as white-collar downsize have shown how promptly that can change for any level of management. Expert power lasts as long as no one else knows as much as you do. Referent power is the only foundation that seems maintainable-and referent power is the one source that seems to rely on interpersonal skills and a considerate of other people.

How can you use your power bases? By using power tactics. Tactics for influencing others include higher authority motive, friendliness, bargaining, assertiveness, coalition, and sanctions. Again, like the bases, the different tactics have different levels of accept- capability, as well as some negative consequences that need to be thought before you act.

The Role of Dependency

The key to power: The greater a person's dependency on you, the more power you have over that person. At first glance, a CEO seems like a very powerful person. However, CEOs are approximately totally reliant on other people-so, in fact, their level of power is not very high. If you as a manager are reliant on other people's performance for your own presentation review, then these other people have power over you, whether they know it or not. Enslavement can augment if the "resource" you manage is important, scarce, and non substitutable. So, you can work to augment your power by either mounting other people's addiction on you or by dipping your addiction on others.

Politics

Often frame as negative; politics are a usual part of any organization.  Having established that, what is a working definition of politics, and when are they practical or dysfunctional for an organization?  Political behavior can be defined as "activities not obligatory in your formal role, but that influence, or try to pressure activities and resource distributions within the company." Such behavior can be in the interests of the company-or it can be in straight opposition to what is best for the organization: then it becomes dysfunctional, political behavior. Organizations are a social structure of human being, with limited resources-and these factors combine to make political performance almost inevitable. Political behavior tends to augment as capital becomes more unnatural, and if the situations facing the company are more uncertain, making rational optimizing decision-making complicated.

Other, personality factors can donate to political behavior. People who score high on a feature called "Machiavellianism" are more likely to show supporting behaviors than people who score low on this scale. In totaling, people who are high self monitors show a propensity to "politick." A tremendous form of politicking, where people try to control the image others have of them, is called notion management-where most of a person's energy and time goes to organization imitation rather than doing work.

Much politicking is intended at self-fortification as much as at self-promotion, and self-protective behaviors are habitually seen in organization with high level of political behavior. Suspicious behaviors include: operational to rule; transitory the buck; playing dumb; stalling; escalation of commitment; and defensive turf and territory.

Although politics can be useful, more often they are dysfunctional for the company. As a manager, be aware of why politicking increase, what political performance looks as, and what to do to handle it when you see it.