ORGANIZATIONAL POWER

Lecture Eight

Dr. Henry Mensah

Dept. of Human Resource & Org. Dev.
KNUST School of Business
henbil25@yahoo.com
 ORGANIZATIONAL POWER

DEFINITIONS

• Ability to get someone to do something you want

done or the ability to make things happen in the
way you want them to.

• The essence of power is control over the behavior of

others.

• influence is what you have when you exercise power.

 Sources of Power

• The sources of power are Position power and

Personal power.

• A managers position power allows him to

perform certain duties automatically for the
organization. E.g. reward, coercive,
legitimate, process, information.
 Reward Power.
• Reward power is the extent to which a
manager can use extrinsic and intrinsic
rewards to control other people. Examples of
such rewards include money, promotions,
compliments, or enriched jobs.
 Reward Power cont.
• Power can also be founded on punishment
instead of reward.

• For example, a manager may threaten to

withhold a pay raise, or to transfer, demote, or
even recommend the firing of a subordinate
who does not act as desired.
 Coercive Power

• The availability of coercive power also varies

from one organization to the other and
manger to another.

• Such coercive power is the extent to which a

manager can deny desires of a rewards or administer
punishments to control other people
 Legitimate Power
• Legitimate power represent a special kind of
power a manager has because subordinates
believe it is legitimate for a person occupying
the managerial position as their boss to have
right to command.
If this legitimacy is lost, authority will not be
accepted by subordinates
 Process power
• Process power is the control over methods of
production and analysis. The source of this
power is the placing of the individual in a
position to influence how inputs are
transformed into outputs for the firm, a
department in the firm, or even a small group.
• Firms often establish process specialists who
work with managers to insure that production
is processes used to make choices.
 Information power

• Information power is the access to and/ or

the control of information. It is one of the
most important aspects of legitimacy. The
“right to know” and use information can be,
and often is, conferred on a position holder.
Thus, information power may complement
legitimate hierarchical power.
 Information power cont
• Information power may also be granted to
specialist and managers who are in the middle of
the information systems of the firm.

• For example, the chief information officer of the

firm may not only control all the computers, but
may also have access to almost any information of
the information systems of the computers, but
may also have access to almost any information
desired.
 Representative power
• This is the formal right conferred by the firm
to speak as a representative for a potentially
important group composed of individuals
across departments or outside the firm.
 Representative power cont.
• such groups includes investors, customer,
alliance partners, and, of course, unions.
Astute executives often hire individuals to act
as representative of and to these
constituencies to ensure that their influence is
felt, but does not dominate.
 Representative power cont.

• In firms, the legitimacy of those at the top

increasingly derives from their positions as
representatives for various constituencies.
 PERSONAL POWER

• Personal power resides in the individual and is

independent of that individual’s position.
Positional power is important in many well-
managed firms. Three bases of personal
power are expertise, rational persuasion, and
referent.
 Expert power
• The ability to control another person’s
behavior through the possession of
knowledge, experience, or judgment that the
other person does not have but needs.
 Rational persuasion
• The ability to control another’s behavior
because through the individual’s efforts, the
person accepts the desirability of an offered
goal and reasonable way of achieving it. Much
of what a supervisor does day to day involves
rational persuasion up, down, and across the
organization.
 Rational persuasion
• Rational persuasion involves both explaining
the desirability of expected outcome and
showing how specific actions will achieve
these outcomes.
 Referent power
• The ability to control another’s behavior
because the person wants to identify with the
power source. In this case, a subordinate
obeys the boss because he or she wants to
behave, perceive, or believe as the boss does.
This obedience may occur, for example,
because the subordinate likes the boss-
subordinate attempt to avoid doing anything
that would interferer with the pleasing boss-
subordinate relationship.
 ACQURING AND USING POWER AND INFLUENCE

• Power-oriented behavior is action directed

primarily at developing or using relationships
in which other people are to some degree
willing to defer to one’s wishes. The effective
manager is one who succeeds in building and
maintaining high levels of both position and
personal power over time.
 Building Position Power
• Position power can be enhanced when
managers are able to demonstrate to others
that their work units are highly relevant to
organizational goals and are able to respond
to urgent organizational needs.
 Building Position Power
• Managers may also attempt to increase the
relevance of their tasks and those of their unit
to the organization. There are many ways to
do this. Executives may attempt to become an
internal coordinator within the firm or
external representative. They may suggest
their subordinates take on these roles,
particularly when the firm is downsizing
 Building Position Power
• To expand their position, managers may also delegate
routine activities, expand the task variety and novelty
for subordinates, initiate new ideas, and get involved
in new projects.

• There are also ways manager’s attempts to build

influence that may or may not have a positive effect
on the organization. Managers may attempt to define
tasks so that they are difficult to evaluate, such as by
creating an ambiguous job description or developing a
unique language for their work.
 Building Personal Power

• Personal power arises from the

personal characteristics of the
manager rather than from the
location and other characteristics of
his or her position in the
organization’s hierarchy of authority.
 Building Personal Power
• Three personal characteristics, expertise,
political savvy, and likeability, have special
potential for enhancing personal power in an
organization. The most obvious is building
expertise. Additional expertise may be gained
by advanced training and education,
participation in professional associations, and
involvement in the early stages of projects.
 Building Personal Power
• The novice believes that most individuals are
very much the same, see the same goals, and
will accept much the same paths towards
these goals. The more astute individual
recognizes important individual differences.
 Building Personal Power
• A manager’s reference power is increased by
characteristics that enhance his or her
likeability and create personal attraction in
relationships with other people. These include
pleasant personality characteristics, agreeable
behavior patterns, and attractive personal
appearance
 Building Personal Power.
• A person who is perceived to try hard may be
expected to know more about the job and
thus sought out for advice. A person who tries
hard is also likely to be respected for the
attempt and may even be depended on by
others to maintain that effort.
 Combined Building of Position and Personal Power

• From a purely analytical standpoint, most

sources of power can be traced to position
power or personal power. However, many of
the influential actions and behaviors are
combinations of position and personal power.
•
Combined Building of Position and Personal
Power
• Most managers attempt to increase the
visibility of their job performance by (1)
Expanding the number of contracts they have
with senior people, (2) making oral
presentations of written work, (3)
participating in problem-solving task forces,
(4) sending out notices of accomplishment,
and (5) generally seeking additional
opportunity to increase personal name
recognition.
Combined Building of Position and Personal
Power
• Most managers also recognize that, between
superiors and subordinates, access to control
over information is an important element. A
boss may appear to expand his or her expert
power over a subordinate by not allowing the
individual access to critical information.
Although the denial may appear to enhance
the boss expert power, it may reduce the
subordinate’s effectiveness.
Combined Building of Position and Personal
Power.
• In a similar manner a supervisor may also
control access to key organizational decision
makers.

• Many important decisions are made outside

formal channels and are substantially
influenced by key individuals with the
requisite knowledge.
Combined Building of Position and Personal
Power.
• Through coalition’s networks, an individual
may alter the flow of information and the
context for analysis. Developing coalitions and
networks, executives also expand their access
to information and their opportunities for
participation.
Combined Building of Position and Personal
Power.
• Executives who want to increase their power
often make their goals and needs clear show
their power base directly but instead provide
clear “rational persuasion” for their power.
Instead, he or she combines personal power
with the position of the unit to enhance total
power.
 TURNING POWER INTO RELATIONAL INFLUENCE

• Using position and personal power well to

achieve the desired influence over other
people is a challenge for most managers.
Practically speaking, there are many useful
ways of exercising relational influence. The
most common strategies involved the
following:
 TURNING POWER INTO RELATIONAL
INFLUENCE
• Reason: using facts and data to support a logical
argument.

• Friendliness: using flattery, goodwill, and

favorable impression.

• Coalition: using relationships with other people for

support.

• Bargaining: using the exchange of benefits as a

basis for negotiation.
 Strategies continued.
• Assertiveness: using a direct and forceful
personal approach.

• Higher authority: Gaining higher-level support

for one’s request.

• Sanctions: using organizationally derived

rewards and punishments.
 Strategies continued.
• Research on these strategies suggest that
reason is the most popular strategy overall. In
addition, friendliness, assertiveness,
bargaining, and higher authority are used
more frequently to influence subordinates
than to influence supervisors.
 POWER, FORMAL AUTHORITY, AND OBEDIENCE

• power is the potential to control the behavior

of others, and formal authority is the potential
to exert such control through the legitimacy of
a managerial position. Yet, we also know that
people who seem to have power don’t always
get their way.
 POWER, FORMAL AUTHORITY, AND
OBEDIENCE

• Why do some people obey directives and

others do not? More specifically, why should
subordinates respond to manager’s authority,
or “right to command” in the first place?
Furthermore, given that subordinates are
willing to obey, what determine the limits of
obedience?
 POWER, FORMAL AUTHORITY, AND
OBEDIENCE
• Obedience and the Zone of Indifference Most
people seek a balance between what they put
into an organization (contributions) and what
they get from an organization in return Within
the boundaries of the psychological contract,
therefore, employees will agree to do many
things in and for the organization because
they think they should.
 POWER, FORMAL AUTHORITY, AND
OBEDIENCE
• In exchange for certain inducements,
subordinates recognize the authority of the
organization and its managers to direct their
behavior in certain ways.
 EMPOWERMENT

• Empowerment is the process by which

management helps others to acquire and use
the power needed to make decision affecting
themselves and their work. More than ever
before, managers in progressive organizations
are expected to be good at (and highly
comforted with) empowering the people with
whom they work.
 EMPOWERMENT

• The concept of empowerment is part of the

sweeping change being witnessed in today’s
corporations. Corporate staff is being cut back;
layers of management are eliminated; leaner
and trimmer organization staffed by fewer
managers who must share more power as
they go about their daily tasks.
 EMPOWERMENT

• Indeed, empowerment is a key foundation of

the increasingly popular self-managing work
teams and other creative worker involvement
groups.
 POWER AS A KEY TO EMPOWERMENT

• One of the bases for empowerment is a

radically different view of power itself. So far,
our discussion has focused on power that is
exerted over other individuals. In this
traditional view, power is relational in terms of
individuals. In contrast, the concept of
empowerment emphasizes they ability to
make things happen.
 POWER AS A KEY TO EMPOWERMENT

• Power is still relational, but in terms of

problems and opportunities, not individuals.
Cutting through all the corporate rhetoric on
empowerment is quite difficult, since the term
has become quite fashionable in management
circles.

• Each individual empowerment attempt needs

to be examined in light of how power in the
organization will be changed.
 Changing Position Power

• When an organization attempts to move down

power the hierarchy, it must also alter the
existing pattern of position power. Changing
this pattern raises some important questions.
Can “empowered” individuals give rewards
and sanctions based on task accomplishment?
Has their new right to act been legitimized
with formal authority?
 Changing Position Power

• All too often, attempts at empowerment

disrupt well-established patterns of position
power and threaten middle and lower level
managers. As one supervisor said, “All this
empowerment stuff sounds great for top
management
 Expanding the Zone of Indifferent

• When embarking on an empowerment

program, management needs to recognize the
current zone of difference and systematically
move to expand it. All too often, managing
assumes that its directive for empowerment
will be followed; management may fail to
show precisely how empowerment will
benefit the individuals involved.