2. CONCEPT OF
POWER
POWER
SOURCES OF
POWER IN
ORGANIZATIONS
POWER
ROLE OF ETHIC IN
USING POWER
EMPOWERMENT
SYMBOLS OF
POWER AND
POWERLESSNESS
3. CONCEPT OF POWER
• Potential ability of a person / group to exercise control
over another person / group (Moorhead /
Griffin)
• Ability to influence another person (Nelson & Quick)
• Influence – process affecting thoughts, behavior &
feeling of another person
• Authority – right to influence another.
• 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.
4.
5.
6. REWARD POWER
• Based on person A’s ability to
control rewards that person B
wants.
• Reward power can lead to
better incentives but only as
long as person B sees a strong
and clear link between
performance and rewards
7. COERCIVE POWER
• Deny desired rewards /
administer punishment.
• Requires the leader/manager to
be physically present and
watchful all the time, otherwise,
employees will not work.
8. LEGITIMATE POWER
• Based on position and mutual
agreement
• Persons A and B agree that
person A has the right to
influence person B’s behavior.
• Person B must believe that
person A has the right to tell
them what to do
9. PROCESS POWER
• Control over methods of production and
analysis.
• Places an individual in the position of;
Influencing how inputs are transformed into
outputs
Controlling the analytical process used to make
choices
10. INFORMATION POWER
• Access / control of
information.
• May protect information in
order to increase their
power.
• May complement legitimate
hierarchical power
11. REPRESENTATIVE POWER
• 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.
• Help complex organizations
deals with a variety of
constituencies.
12.
13. EXPERT POWER
• The power that exists when
person A has the information or
knowledge that person B
needs.
• For expert power to work, three
conditions must be met:
Person B must believe that
person A’s knowledge is accurate,
The knowledge must be relevant
and useful for person B
That person B believes that
person A is really an expert.
14. Rational persuasion
• Convince other person of
the desirability of a goal
and a reasonable way of
achieving it.
• Supervisor’s daily
activity involves this
power.
15. Referent power
• That is based on interpersonal
attraction.
• Person A has referent power
over person B because person B
identifies with person A and
wants to be like person A.
• People who have this source of
power have a personal
magnetism, an air of confidence
and a passionate belief in
objectives that attract and hold
their followers.
16. COALITION POWER
• The ability to control another’s behavior
indirectly because the individual owes an
obligation to you or another as part of a larger
collective interest.
17. Building
Position Power
Perfecting
Building
Influence
Personal Power
Techniques
BUILDING
INFLUENCE
Increasing
Controlling
Visibility &
Decision
Control over
Premises
Information
18. Action directed at 3 dimensions:
developing or using 1. Upward
Power Oriented relationship in which 2. Downward
Behavior other people are willing
to defer wholly or 3. Lateral
partially to one’s wishes.
Effective managers build and maintain position power
and personal power to exercise downward, upward and
lateral influence.
19. BUILDING POSITION POWER
• Increase centrality and
criticality in organization
• Increase task relevance of own
and work unit’s activities
• Attempt to define tasks so
they are difficult to evaluate
20. BUILDING PERSONAL POWER
• Building expertise
Advanced training and education, participation in
professional associations and project involvement
• Learning political savvy
Learning ways to negotiate, persuade and understand goals
and means that others accept
• Enhancing likeability
Pleasant personality characteristics, agreeable behavior
patterns and attractive.
21. INCREASING VISIBILITY & CONTROL
OVER INFORMATION
• Expand contacts with senior people
• Make oral presentations of written work
• Participating in problem – solving task forces
• Seek opportunities to increase name recognition.
• Sending out notices of accomplishment
• Coalitions and network
22. CONTROLLING DECISION PREMISES
• Make one’s own goals and needs clear
• Bargaining effectively regarding one’s preferred
goals and needs.
24. EMPOWERMENT?
• Managers help others to acquire
and use power needed to make
decisions affecting themselves
and their work.
• Power is something can be shared
• Provide foundation for self –
managing work teams and other
employee involvement groups.
25. POWER KEYS TO EMPOWERMENT
• Changing position power
• Expanding the zone of indifference
26. POWER AS AN EXPANDING PIE
• Employees must be trained to expand their
power and their new influence potential
• Empowerment changes the dynamics between
supervisors and subordinates
27. WAYS TO EXPAND POWER
• Define roles and responsibilities
• Provide opportunities for creative problem
solving coupled with the discretion to act
• Emphasize different ways of exercise influence
• Provide support to individuals so they become
comfortable with developing their power
• Expand inducements for thinking and
acting, not just obeying.
28. GUIDELINES FOR EMPOWERING
• Express confidence in employees
• Set high performance expectations
• Create opportunities for participative decision
making
• Remove bureaucratic constraints that stifle
autonomy
29. ETZIONI’S POWER ANALYSIS
Type of Membership
Alienative Calculative Moral
Coercive
Utilitarian
Normative
SOURCE: Adapted from Amitai Etzioni, Modern Organizations (Upper Saddle River, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 59-61.
Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, N.J.
30. 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
31. 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
32. KANTER’S SYMBOLS OF POWER
• 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
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
33. KANTER’S SYMBOLS OF POWERLESS
Top Executives
Staff Professionals
• Budget cuts
• Resistance to change
• Punishing behaviors
• Turf protection
• Top-down communications
Managers First-line Supervisors
• Assign external attribution - • Overly close supervision
blame others or environment • Inflexible adherence to rules
• Do job rather than train
Key to overcoming powerlessness:
share power and delegate decision making
35. McCLELLAND’S 2 FACES OF POWER
Personal power
• The negative face of power. This is
power used for
personal gain.
• Leaders or managers who use
personal power are often referred to
as “power hungry”.
• Personal power is a win-lose form of
power in which the manager tends to
treat others as objects to be utilized
to get ahead.
• It is based on the traditional notion
of power as domination over others.
36. Cont’
Social power
• positive face of power.
• Create motivation or to
accomplish group goals.
• McClelland found that the best
managers are those who
possess a high need for social
power coupled with a relatively
low need for social affiliation.
37. FOUR POWER-ORIENTED CHARACTERISTICS
1. Belief in the authority system
• They believe that the institution is important and that the authority
system is valid.
• They are comfortable influencing and being influenced. The source
of their power is the authority system of which they are a part.
2. Preference for work and discipline
• They like their work and they are also very orderly. They
believe that work is more than its income producing value.
3. Altruism
• They put the company and its needs before their own. They see
their own well-being as integrally tied to the corporate well-
being.
4. Belief in Justice
• They believe justice is to be sought above all else. People should
receive that to which they are entitled and that which they
earn.
38. USING POWER EFFECTIVELY
• Use ethical way
• Understand use all the various types of power
and influence
• Seek out jobs that allow you to develop your
power skills
• Use power tempered by maturity and self –
control
• Accept that influencing people is an important
part of the management job.
39. WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT POWER…
• “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to
test a man’s character, give him power” - Abraham
Lincoln
• “You can have power over people as long as you don't
take everything away from them. But when you've
robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your
power” - ALEKSANDER SOLZHENITSYN
• William Shakespeare:
O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is
tyrannous to use it like a giant.
• Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our
strength into compelling power.
