power and politics

1. Presented By: Saiyad Eman Shafique
Submitted To:
VBSPU University
Department of Applied Psychology
2020-2021
POWER & POLITICS IN AN ORGANISATION

2. POWER & POLITICS
 Power and politics are two face of a single coin.
 They move parallelly together.

3. WHAT IS POWER
Power is the potential ability to influence behaviour, to change the course of events, to
overcome resistance, and to get the people to do the things they would not otherwise
do.
 The greater A’s dependency on B, the greater B’s power over A.
 Dependency arises as some body has control over the resources and due to:
Importance of the resource to the organization
Scarcity of the resource
Non-substitutability of the resource

4. WHY IS POWER REQUIRED?
 Providing direction
 Get fast access to decision makers
 Maintain regular, frequent contact with decision makers
 Assisting in the management process
 Structure to organisations
 Assist to employees in performing better
 Articulate the goals

5. TYPES OF POWER
 Two main sources of individual power:
Position power—based on one’s formal position in an organization
Personal power—derived from a person’s individual qualities or characteristics

6. LEGITIMATE POWER
 Legitimate Power—refers to the ability to influence others because of the position
one holds in the organization.
 It is also called authority, or the right to command.
 Characteristics of organizational authority are:
i. It is invested in a person's position.
ii. It is accepted by subordinates.
iii. Authority is used vertically, flows from the top down.

7. COERCIVE & REWARD POWER
 Coercive Power—the power to punish or with hold punishment.
It is based on fear.
It can come from legitimate power.
It can come informally, e.g., fear of rejection by coworkers.
 Reward Power—The power to give pay raises, promotion, praise, interesting
projects, and other rewards to subordinates.

8. INFORMATION, EXPERT & RATIONAL
PERSUASION POWER
 Information Power—The power that stems from access to and control over
information.
 Expert Power—based on an individual's special and valued expertise.
The lower the substitutability of the expertise, the greater the expert's power.
 Rational Persuasion - Ability to mount logical arguments and factual evidence to
convince others an idea as acceptable.

9. REFERENT &CHARISMATIC POWER
 Referent Power is power of an individual over the Team or Followers, based on a
high level of identification with, admiration of, or respect for the powerholder/
leader.
 Charismatic Power - An intense form of referent power that stems from an
individual’s personality or physical or other abilities, which induce others to believe
in and follow that person.
Vision
Inspire trust
Excellent communicators

10. INFLUENCE TACTICS
 Ways in which Individual translates power bases into specific actions.
Nine influence tactics:
Reason
Assertiveness
Friendliness
Coalition
Bargaining
Higher authority
Sanctions
Pressure
Exchange

11. POWER TACTICS BY INFLUENCE
DIRECTION

12. FACTORS INFLUENCING POWER
TACTICS
 Choice and effectiveness of influence tactics are moderated by:
 – Sequencing of tactics
• Softer to harder tactics work best
 – Political skill of the user
 – The culture of the organization
• Culture affects user’s choice of tactic

13. STRATEGIES FOR ATTAINING POWER
 Maintaining alliance with powerful people
 Embrace or Demolish
 Divide and Rule
 Manipulate Information
 Create good impressions
 Collect and use IOUs
 Go slow and easy
 Wait for crises
 Reservations against participation

14. POWER SHARING
 Decentralization of power- shared decision making.
 De-concentration – handing over some admin authority to lower levels
 Delegation- Transferring responsibility for specifically defined functions
 Devolution - creating and strengthening subunits
 Privatization – passing responsibility to private organisations.

15. POSITIVE EFFECTS OF POWER
 Leadership responsibilities
 Organizational and personal goals
 Inspire commitment
 Creativity
 Reduction of bureaucratic obstacles

16. NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF POWER
 Bully Bosses
 Manipulator
 Sexual harassment

17. ORGANISATIONAL POLITICS
Politics are the activities that are not required as part of one’s formal role in the
Organization, but that influence, or attempt to influence the distribution of advantages
and disadvantages within the organization.
 Politics = Power in Action
 Legitimate and illegitimate political behaviors are common in organizations.
Factors contributing to Political Behavior:
Individual factors (e.g., personality traits, needs)
Organizational factors (e.g., when organizational resources decline,
resources change, low trust exists, high performance pressures, and the opportunity of
promotion exists)

18. GOOD POWER & POLITICS
Processes
 Empowerment, open conflict, positive-sum games, creative turbulence, acceptance
of rules of the game, consensus on core values, shifting coalitions and interests
Outcomes
 Flexibility, adaptiveness, overcome dependency and inertia, root out entrenched
interests, abolish unproductive routines, increased efficacy, efficiency.

19. BAD POWER & POLTICS
From the organization’s perspective
 Processes
Back-stabbing, rumor-mongoring, vengeance seeking, sabotage, corruption,
secrecy, hoarding, zero-sum games
 Outcomes
Goal subversion/sub-optimization; factionalism; stalemate & inertia, high cost in
time & resources, loss of transparency and accountability
 From the participant’s perspective
Uncertainty, anxiety, frustration, stress, isolation, inability to focus on tasks, failure.

20. TYPES OF POLITICS
Attacking and blaming
Controlling information
Forming coalitions
Cultivating networks
Creating obligations
Managing impressions

21. ATTACKING AND BLAMING
 Targeting on other’s
 Blaming other’s
 Not accepting faults

22. FORMING COALITIONS
 Forming negative aspects on others
 Groupism
 Rationalism

23. CONTROLLING INFORMATION
 Maintaining secrets
 Incomplete information
 Wrong information
 Destroying information

24. IMPLICATIONS OF POLITICS ON
PEOPLE
 Decrease job satisfaction
 Increased anxiety and stress
 Decreased in overall productivity
 Affects Concentration
 Spoils the Ambience
 Changes the Attitude of employees
 Demotivated employees
 Wrong Information

25. THANK YOU