“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? (2003)

Louis Gerstner “Fixing IBM was all about execution.

We had to stop looking for people to blame, stop tweaking the internal structure and systems. I wanted no excuses.”

Power and politics often have negative connotations because people associate them with attempts to use organizational resources for personal advantage and to achieve personal goals at the expense of other goals.

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Organizational Behavior: Chapter 156

Power, formal authority, and obedience.• The Milgram experiments.

Designed to determine the extent to which people obey the commands of an authority figure, even under the belief of life-threatening conditions.

The results indicated that the majority of the experimental subjects would obey the commands of the authority figure.

Raised concerns about compliance and obedience.

Zone of Indifference - the range in which attempts to influence a person will be perceived as legitimate & will be acted on without a great deal of thought

Zone of Indifference

Z o n e o f I n d i f f e r e n c e

Managers strive to expand the zone of indifference

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

Reward Power - agent’s ability to control the rewards that the target wants

Coercive Power - agent’s ability to cause an unpleasant experience for a target

Legitimate Power - agent and target agree that agent has influential rights, based on position and mutual agreement

Referent Power - based on interpersonal attraction- timing matters

Expert Power - agent has knowledge target needs

CommitmentCommitment

RewardRewardPowerPower

Legitimate Legitimate PowerPower

CoerciveCoercivePowerPower

ExpertExpertPowerPower

ReferentReferentPowerPower

ResistanceResistance

ComplianceCompliance

Sources of Power

Consequences of Power

(Continued)

Expert Power!

Strong relationship to performance & satisfaction

Transfers vital skills, abilities, and knowledge within the organization

Employees internalize what they observe & learn from managers they consider “experts”

Information Power - access to and control over important information

Formal/informal position in communication network

Interpreting information when passing it on

Does the behavior produce a good outcome for people both inside and outside the organization?

Does the behavior respect the rights of all parties?

Does the behavior treat all parties equitably and fairly?

Personal Power used for personal gain

Social Power used to create motivation used to accomplish group goals

Have high need for social power Approach relationships with a communal

orientation Focus on needs and interests of others

belief in justice altruism

belief in the authority system

preference for work & discipline

Control of critical resources Control of strategic contingencies -

activities that other groups need to complete their tasks

Ways groups hold power over other groups• Ability to reduce uncertainty• High centrality - functionality central to

organization’s success• Nonsubstitutability - group’s activities are

difficult to replace

Organizational Power

Coercive Power - influence through threat of punishment, fear, or intimidation

Utilitarian Power - influence through rewards and benefits

Normative Power - influence through knowledge of belonging, doing the right thing

Organizational Membership

Alienative Membership - members feel hostile, negative, do not want to be there

Calculative Membership - members weigh benefits and limitations of belonging

Moral Membership - members have positive organizational feelings; will deny own needs

Type of Membership

Typ

e of

Pow

er

Alienative Calculative Moral

Normative

Utilitarian

Coercive

SOURCE: Adapted from Amitai Etzioni, Modern Organizations (Upper “Saddle River, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 59-61

Ability to intercede for someone in trouble

Ability to get placements for favored employees

Exceeding budget limitations

Procuring above-average raises for employees

Getting items on the agenda at meetings

Access to early information

Having top managers seek out their opinion

First-line Supervisors• overly close supervision• inflexible adherence to rules• do job rather than train

Staff Professionals• resistance to change• turf protection

Top Executives• budget cuts• punishing behaviors• top-down communications

Managers• assign external attribution - blame others or environment

Authority to make decisions without having to first get approval.

Giving Power and Authority Away

Carries Risk and Reward

How does it enhance innovation and why does it work?

Organizational Politics - the use of power and influence in organizations

Political Behavior - actions not officially sanctioned by an organization that are taken to influence others in order to meet one’s personal goals

How to be a Star at Work 1999 Robert E Kelley

“What average performers think it is: The talent for brownnosing and schmoozing in the workplace to help me get noticed by the right people. What start performers know it to be: A work strategy that enabled me to navigate the competing interests in an organization to promote cooperation, address conflicts and get things done.”

How to win Friends and Influence People

Dale Carnegie 1998 “Always make the other person feel

important…and do it sincerely. Please, thank you and Would you mind?...”

(Continued)

(Continued)

A Final Word on Power and Politics- authenticity

(Continued)

Recognize that power and politics influence all behavior in organizations and that it is necessary to develop the skills to be able to understand and manage them.

Analyze the sources of power in the function, division, and organization in which you work to identify powerful people and the organization’s power structure.

To influence organizational decision making and your chances of promotion, try to develop a personal power base to increase your visibility and individual power.

Recognize that power and politics influence all behavior in organizations and that it is necessary to develop the skills to be able to understand and manage them.

Analyze the sources of power in the function, division, and organization in which you work to identify powerful people and the organization’s power structure.

To influence organizational decision making and your chances of promotion, try to develop a personal power base to increase your visibility and individual power.

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Questions