30 Power and Politics

Prof. Geeta Bansal

1.      Module 09:Power and Politics

2.      Learning Outcome

3.      Introduction

Defining power

Two faces of power

Sources of power in organizations: Formal  and Personality

4    Bases of power

4.   Approaches to understanding power in organizations

1.      Emerson’s power dependence theory

2.      French and raven’ bases of social power theory

3.      Salancik and Pfeiffer’s strategic contingency model

4.      Mintzberg’s genesis of power theory

6.  Organizational Politics

6.1. Power tactics used in organizations

6.2 Politics and coalitions

7.  Controlling political behavior in organizations

7.1. Impression management: positive and negative impressions

8.   Summary

2.  LEARNING OUTCOMES

• After going through the lesson, you should be able to;
• Understand the various sources/ Bases of Power in the organization
• Deliberate upon the Approaches to understanding power in organizations
• Examine what are Power Tactics and Politics and how they are used in organizations. Find out how to Control political behavior in organizations
• Know what is Impression management

3.INTRODUCTION

Power refers to the potential or actual ability to influence others in a desired direction. As an exchange relationship, power occurs in transactions between an agent and a target. The agent is the person using the power, and the target is the recipient of the attempt to use power. Different individuals and groups within and outside the organization can exert power. Individual employees, including top and middle management, technical analysts and specialists, support staff, and other non-managerial workers can influence the actions an organization takes to reach its goals. Formalgroups of employees. Such as various departments, work teams, management councils, task forces, or employee unions, as well as informal groups such as those workers with offices near each other or those who see each other socially, can similarly exercise power. Non-employees may also try to influence the behavior of an organization and its members. Owners, suppliers clients, competitors, employee unions, the general public and directors of the organization may extent power that affects the organization.

Defining power

Salancik and Pfeiffer have defined power as the ability of those who possess power bring about the outcomes they desire.

Power is the influence over the beliefs, emotions and behaviors of others at the personal or the professional level.

In simple terms, we may define power as the ability of a person (or group A) to induce another person (or group B) to behave in a way that the former desires.

Two faces of power

Most of us think and perceive power to be negative in nature , even though we are well aware that whatever happens in the world is a game of power and people exert power over others who have lesser bargaining power usually.

Nevertheless there are two faces of power, one negative and the other positive.

The negative face of power is characterized by a primitive, unsocial zed need to have dominance over submissive people

The positive face of power is characterized by a socialized need to initiate , influence and lead others in a well desired and aspired direction

Sources of Power in Organizations

The main sources of power are formal position in the organization and the personality characteristics of the leader.

Formal position in the organization: generally it is the power attached to a position in the organization which is more potent than the person who occupies the position. E.g. the position of the president of America is the most prestigious formal power irrespective of the person who mans it . the same can be understood true for all the official positions in the organizations like that of a president, vice president, CEO etc.

Personality characteristics of the leader: this refers to the charisma or personality of an individual which makes him powerful in his personal or professional setup, where people tend to follow whatever he does owing to the sheer magic of his persona.

4. BASES OF POWER

John French and Bertram Raven identified five types of interpersonal power that managers use. They are reward, coercive, legitimate, referent and expert power. These sources of power are cal1ed interpersonal because they involve the relationship between the person who holds power and those who are influenced by him or her.

Reward Power

When the source of power is a person’s control over rewarding outcomes, the power is called reward power. For example, managers control the rewards of salary increases, bonuses and promotions. Reward power can lead to better performance, but only as long as the employee sees a clear and strong link between performance and rewards. To use reward power effectively, then, the manager should be explicit about the behavior being rewarded and should make the connection between the behavior and the reward clear. Non management employees also may have reward power. For example, one employee might offer another praise and approval, an invitation to a desirable social function, or an interesting task in a group project.

Coercive Power

A manager who exerts power by evoking fear has coercive power. To coerce someone into doing something means to force the person to do it, often with threats of punishment. Managers using coercive power may verbally abuse employees or withhold support from them. Coercion can create stress and anxiety for employees. In extreme cases, it can even lead to increased absenteeism and turnover and may encourage sabotage at the workplace. Employees at all levels may exert coercive power through such tactics as ridicule or exclusion of a co-worker. Sexual harassment can be an unethical and illegal use of coercive power. Coercive power influences others by inducing compliance. Coercion merely prevents undesirable behaviour rather than stimulating desirable behavior.

Legitimate Power

Legitimate power which is similar to authority, it is the power that is based on position and mutual agreement. The agent and target agree that the agent has the right to influence the target. For legitimate power to be effective, the employees must believe the manager has the right to tell them what to do. Legitimate power stems from a person’s occupation of a particular position in the organization. It is based on the presumption that the organization’s structure gives people in some, positions the right to influence other people. Legitimate power – especially when wielded by someone higher up the organization’s hierarchy’- is authority.

Responses to Legitimate Power: The basic response to legitimate power is internalization. This means we comply because a degree of intrinsic satisfaction results from complying with the orders of a person in authority. The satisfaction is independent of whether that person doles out reward or punishments.

Limitations of Legitimate Power: Because legitimate power arises from a person’s position in the urbanization, it is effective only for influencing behaviour that employees’ belief falls within the authority of that position. When an employee’s request or directive falls outside this “zone of acceptance”, other (Subordinate or peer level) employees will question it and may reject it.

Referent Power

Some people influence others through the force of their attractiveness, the mysterious personal magnetism we call ‘charisma’. This influence is called referent power. The agent has referent power over the target because the target identifies with – or wants to be like – the agent. Charismatic individuals are often thought to have referent power. An advantage of holding referent power is that it can lead people to do things that may not result in a tangible reward; the reward comes instead from the relationship with the charismatic person. However, asking for more than people who are willing to do can reduce a person’s referent power.

Expert Power

Power that arises from a person’s expertise, knowledge or talent is called expert power. People with expert power are influential because others believe they can benefit from the information experts can provide. For expert power to work, three conditions must be in place. First, the target must trust that the information given is accurate.

Second, the information involved must be relevant and useful to the target.

Third, the target’s perception the agent as an expert is crucial.

5. APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING POWER IN ORGANIZATIONS

The sources of power determine the process of generation and acquisition of power. There are different approaches to understanding power in organizations which are briefly discussed below figure 1.

1.      Emerson’s power dependence theory

2.      French and raven’ bases of social power theory

3.      Salancik and Pfeiffer’s strategic contingency model

4.      Mintzberg’s genesis of power theory

Figure 1 : Approaches To Understanding Power In Organizations

6. ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS

Organizational Politics can be understood as intentional acts of influence to enhance or protect the self interests of individuals or groups in the organizations. Just like power, politics is also neither good nor bad but again has two faces, negative and positive. It seems to be associated with decision making, resource allocation and resolution of conflict in the organizations.

6.1. Power tactics used in organizations

The main motive of individuals in organizations is to gain power and to gain it they use different tactics. Through using these tactics within their groups or between the groups they influence people and gain power. Power tactics which people use for influencing their co-workers, employees or bosses to be more effective are as under:

1.  Formal Authority: When the position has formal authority, they fix a deadline for others in the group to comply the orders and do what is expected from them. This is called assertiveness through which they remind others to perform and oblige as per rules.

2. Rationality: When a person using facts and information convinces others in a logical way to comply with, it looks a rational way for compliance from others as competent man.

3. Pressure Building: Group of people like trade unions to gain power use pressure building on people as well as organization. But this method may become counterproductive like in the case of threat of strike; organization may go for lock out.

4.   Sanctions: To gain more power logically the persons in power may use organizational rewards and punishment. When they give promotions or rise in salary for good work it is called rewards. Similarly when someone lag behind in performance appraisal continuously his promotion is withheld. It is called punishment. By using method of sanctions they gain more power.

5.  Competition: When the organizational resources are scarce, the parties compete with each other to have control over the criteria to be used for resource allocation to gain more power.

6.  Coalition: When two or more groups in the organization make alliance to gain more, it is called coalition.

7.  Integrative Importance: When in an organization a service provider group’s services are required by all groups within the organization that service providers group becomes important and sought after by all group to function effectively. That group will have more inter group power.

8. Bargaining: It is another method to gain power. When one has already bestowed benefits on others in the past and he reminds others for favor through a process of negotiation to get his work done.

9. Friendliness: Through this method a person requests another to do his work through convincing him. He convinces another either through flattery i.e. praising his importance prior to request, or waiting through friendly or humble way till he is in receptive mood for request.

10.  Higher Authority:  Some managers, to get the work done from their subordinates may make efforts to secure support of

higher authorities.

11. Cooperation: It is one of the inter-group power tactics. In this method one group gives some of its important positions to members of other group to have a control on the policy making committees it is called cooptation. Through this method they remove the chances of being criticized by other group for decisions taken in the committees.

6.2 Politics and coalitions

Politics is individual or group behavior that is informal, parochial, typically divisive, and above all illegitimate because decisions are made in the best interests of individuals or groups rather than the best interests of the organization.

Coalitions

Coalitions are groups of individuals who bargain in an effort to get resources distributed in their favor. Coalitions are groups outside the organization that try to influence the organization–for example, tax payers, teacher associations, and citizens.

Three types of external coalitions

1. Dominated external coalition–one powerful outside group dominates school policy, e. g. “back to basics”–promotes a powerful force that effects what happens internally.
2.  Divided external coalition–a few groups (two or three) compete for influence–influence is balanced but competition is there, e. g., Conservative vs Liberal–power struggle spills over into the organization.
3. Passive external coalition–so many groups that power is dispersed–creates a relatively peaceful and stable environment.

Consequences of External Coalitions:

A dominated external coalitions weakens internal coalitions.

A divided external coalition politicizes internal coalitions.

A passive external coalitions strengthens internal coalitions, often at the level of central administration.

Internal Coalitions

Internal coalitions are groups inside the organization that try to influence the organization–for example, tax payers, teacher associations, and citizens.

1. Personalized Internal Coalition is one in which power is concentrated in the hierarchy, often the Chief Executive.
2. Bureaucratic Internal Coalition is also one where power is concentrated in the system of formal authority, but here it is concentrated in the bureaucracy rather than a person–the Bureaucratic Rules and Procedures.
3. Ideological Internal Coalition is one in which power is concentrated in the culture of the organization. Teachers do not merely accept goals and objective, but rather they share them and are committed to them.
4. Professional Internal Coalition–the System of Expertise dominates.
5. Politicized Internal Coalition–Power rests on Politics and informal power.

The predicted combinations of external and internal coalitions are exhibited below in figure 2.

Figure 2: The predicted combinations of external and internal coalitions

As can be inferred from the above exhibit

The most likely predicted combinations of external and internal coalitions are depicted by XXX:

dominated- personalized, divided and politicized, passive and personalized.

The moderately likely predicted combinations of external and internal coalitions are depicted by

XX:  Dominated-bureaucratic, divided- bureaucratic, passive- bureaucratic, passive-ideological, passive – professional

The less likely predicted combinations of external and internal coalitions are depicted by X: Dominated- ideological, dominated- professional, dominated- politicized, divided- personalized divided- – ideological, divided- professional, passive – politicized.

7. CONTROLLING POLITICAL BEHAVIOR IN ORGANIZATIONS

It has been already established that political behavior in organizations cannot be done away with at any cost, but at the same time efforts can be made to control it to minimize its wrongful impact on the organizational culture. The various techniques that can be applied are:

Creating awareness about the various strategies and tactics of political behavior as discussed earlier will enable the employees to take corrective or preventive actions in situations of politicking in organizations and enabling them to manage such situations more effectively and efficiently.

Reducing the uncertainties owing to the implementation of organization change and development interventions by sharing ample information with all the concerned parties to garner their support and commitment from the very beginning rather than giving them chance to resist any kind of change initiatives

By encouraging open communication especially with regard to the scarcity of resources and telling those about the allocation of resources will discourage political upheavals in the organization. Confronting people who encourage political behavior is a very good technique of controlling political behavior in organizations.

Allocating clear job descriptions and responsibilities with well defined assignments will remove any political diplomacy in the organization.

Eliminating coalitions by regularly transferring and rotating people on the jobs and discouraging formation of groups and coalition politics.

Setting an example by following non political behavior and discouraging and dissuading others to indulge into it, the mangers can act as a role model for their employees.

7.1 Impression Management

This can be defined as the process by which people attempt to control and manipulate the reactions of others to create images of themselves or their ideas. This may be manifested and visible in their way of talking, walking, body language, appearance, facial expressions, handshakes, distance maintained while talking etc. most of these activities are aimed at creating good impressions on others and the most relevant impression that is created by managers is the upward impression management i.e. impressing one’s superiors by whatever means like praising and appreciating their efforts publicly or in front of their colleagues etc.

There can be two types of impressions; positive and negative

Positive impressions are created when the employees are trying to impress their superiors by presenting an upbeat attitude all the times, trying not to offend others and dressing for success, which is okay if done in moderation but not otherwise .overdoing will create a negative impression on others.

On the other hand there are chances that a person tries to create negative impression on others which is very rare but does take place at times which can be in the form of displaying bad attitude, working below one’s potential, withdrawal from active participation in anything, decreasing the performance level and displaying signs of slowing down etc.

8. SUMMARY

Power is the influence over the beliefs, emotions and behaviors of others at the personal or the professional level. In simple terms, we may define power as the ability of a person (or group A) to induce another person (or group B) to behave in a way that the former desires. There are two faces of power; The negative face of power is characterized by a primitive, unsocial zed need to have dominance over submissive people. The positive face of power is characterized by a socialized need to initiate, influence and lead others in a well desired and aspired direction. The main sources of power are formal position in the organization and the personality characteristics of the leader. These sources of power are cal1ed interpersonal because they involve the relationship between the person who holds power and those who are influenced by him or her. There are different approaches to understanding power in organizations; namely the Emerson’s power dependence theory, which states that power is inherent in any social relationship in which one person is dependent on the other. French and raven’s bases of social power theory suggested five sources of power, the reward power, coercive power, legitimate power referent power and the expert power. Salancik and Pfeiffer’s strategic contingency model asserts that power in organizations accrues to organizational subunits that are most important and significant contributors to organizational objectives Mintzberg’s genesis of power theory says that organizational power is built on the premise that organizational behaviour is a game in which various players, called influencers seek to control organizations decisions and actions. Organizational Politics can be understood as intentional acts of influence to enhance or protect the self interests of individuals or groups in the organizations. Various political tactics are used in the organizations which can be controlled by acting wisely and smartly.

Learn More:

• Ashburner L. (199)), “Impact of Technological and Organizational Change” Personnel Review U.K. Stephen P. Robbins, Organizational Behaviour, Concepts, Prentice Hall, India
• James H. Davis (1964) “Group Performance” Addison-Wesley Readings Mass.Clayton P. Alderfer, “Existence, Relatedness, and Growth: Human Needs in Organizational Settings”, Free Press, New York (1972).
• Elmer H. Burack and Robert D. Smith, “Personal Management – A Human Resources Systems Approach” John Wiley, New York (1982).
• John W. Newstrom and Keith Davis, Organizational Behaviour : Human Behaviour at Work”, Tata McGraw Hill, New Delhi (1998).
• L.M. Prasad, Management Process and Organizational, Sultan Chand & Sons K. Ashwathappa, Organization Behaviour. Tata McGraw Hill
• Khanka,S.S, Organizational Behaviour,S.Chand &Co.New Delhi.
• Stephen P. Robbins, Organizational Behaviour Concepts,  Prentice Hall, India.
• Gary Desslar,  “Organization Theories, Prentice Hall, India.