Chapter 13 Notes: Power, Influence, and Politics PDF

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Chapter 13 Notes on Power, Influence, and Politics...

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Chapter 13: Power, Influence, and Politics 13-1 Power in Organizations ● Power: refers to a person or group’s potential to influence another person or group to do something that would not otherwise have been done ● Driver of a leader’s performance= need for power ○ Need for power is wanting to control and influence others, or to be responsible for others ● Leadership motive pattern: a high need for power (with high impulse control) and a low need for affiliation ● 7 types of power ○ Legitimate: power due to the position of authority held ○ Reward: power due to control over rewards ○ Coercive: power due to control over punishments ○ Expert: power due to control because of knowledge, skills, or expertise ○ Informational: power due to control over information ○ Referent: power due to control because subordinates respect, admire, and identify with the leader ○ Persuasive: power due to the ability to use logic and facts to persuade 13-1a Position Power ● Position power: power based on one’s position in the organization ○ ex. president of a company, dean of a school, or manager of a sports team has certain forms of control that come with each position ● Legitimate power: a form of position power based on a person’s holding a managerial position rather than anything the manager is or does as a person ● Reward power: position power that involves the use of both tangible (pay raises for ex) and intangible (ex praise) rewards to influence and motivate followers ○ Ex students comply with teachers deadlines because they want to receive the reward of a good grade ● Coercive power: a position power based on fear or a desire to avoid punishment ○ Could be reduction in work hours, verbal reprimand ○ Ex. instructor threatens to deduct points from a paper assignment for poor grammar 13-1b Personal Power ● Personal power: based on the person's individual characteristics; stays with a person regardless of his or her job or organization ● Expert power: based on an individual's expertise in some area ● Informational power: power derived from control over information ○ One information is shared, informational power is lost ● Referent Power: type of personal power based on a manager’s charisma or attractiveness to others ○ Seek managers approval ● Persuasive power: due to the ability to use logic and facts to persuade others to adopt one’s ideas or perspectives

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Good listening skills and identifying and appealing to goals and motivations of other people can enhance persuasive power 13-2 Using Power ● Important to adjust your use of power to situations and person you are trying to influence ● Referent and expert power rely on employee’s internal motivation and voluntary compliance, so they are always appropriate. But not always effective ● Legitimate, reward, and coercive power rely on external motivation and obligatory obedience ● Effective leaders tend to rely on expert and referent power more than legitimate 13-2a Acquiring and Using Power ● Your power is greater if the things you control are important, rare, and cannot be substituted for by something else ● Abuse of power: using any type of power to demean, exploit, or take advantage of another or influencing someone to do something the person later regrets ○ Ex. disrespecting individual dignity and interference with job performance or deserved rewards ○ Results of the abuse of power may include decreased employee satisfaction and helping behaviors, increased employee deviance, and increased turnover ○ More examples include bullying, abusive supervision, and sexual harassment 13-2b Empowerment ● Empowerment: sharing power with employees and giving them the authority to make and implement at least some decisions ○ Ex. empowering employees to improve quality, cut costs, and improve their work efficiency. If trained employees have important, accurate, and timely information, they can often handle situations and spot opportunities without a manger’s intervention ○ Empowering requires two things: ■ Managers allow those beneath them to have more power and control over their work ■ Managers provide training, resources, and coaching to give them the skills and confidence to act empowered ○ Being an ethical leader is a source of power because it eliminates hidden agendas and builds trust ○ Technology can empower employees to solve problems themselves 13-2c How Subunits Obtain Power ● A workgroup’s, department’s or subunit’s power is derived either from its control of resources or through its strategic power ● The more desirable and important the resources controlled by a group (ex budget, space), the greater the group’s resource power ● Groups that occupy a central role in decision making wield greater strategic power by influencing higher-level decisions ● Resource scarcity ○ When resources are scarce, power differences across subunits are likely to be magnified. Power is greater for subunits that control scarce resources that are

vital to the organization as a whole. ○ When resources are plentiful, subunit power differences are often reduced ● Centrality ○ A subunit’s activities are central to the extent that they influence the work of many other subunits (ex. Budget approval power), when their impact is more immediate, and when the subunit has a critical impact on the firm’s key product or service ● Substitutability ○ A subunit’s power is reduced to the extent that others inside or outside of the organization can also perform its responsibilities ○ When a subunit’s skills become scarce in the labor market, the power of that subunit increases ○ If a subunit’s work can be outsourced, that unit’s power decreases because the threat of outsourcing can counter its influence attempts ● Uncertainty ○ Accurate planning, financing, budgeting, and staffing all depend on a reasonably predictable future ○ Subunits most capable of coping with uncertainty or of guiding the organization through a period of increased uncertainty tend to have great power 13-3 Influence in Organizations ● Influential people have power, but not all powerful people have influence ○ Ex. employees are often more responsive to social influence of their peers than to the control and incentives of management ○ Leadership is in large part an influence process that involves the use of various powers of interpersonal styles to affect the behaviors and attitudes of others 13-3a Influence Tactics ● Influence tactics: how people translate their power to affect the behavior of others ○ Should be matched to situation and person being influenced ○ Ex of influence tactics: ■ Coalition tactics: engaging the help of others to persuade someone to do something ■ Consultation: requesting someone’s advice to solve a problem or mutually setting goals to increase a follower’s commitment to the leader’s decision ■ Exchange: offering to exchange something of value now or in the future for someone’s cooperation ■ Ingratiation: flattering or praising someone to put them in a good mod or make them more likely to want to help ■ Inspirational appeals: appealing to someone’s aspirations, values, and ideals to gain his or her commitment, or increasing people’s confidence that they can do something in order to increase motivation ■ Legitimating tactics: enhancing one’s formal authority to make a certain request by referring to rules ■ Personal appeals: asking someone to do something “because we’re friends” or asking or a personal favor

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Pressure: using coercion or persistent follow-up or reminder to gain influence ■ Rational persuasion (or reason): using logic and facts to persuade someone ○ Ex of responses to influence attempts ■ Commitment: endorsing and becoming an actively involved participant as a result of the influence attempt ■ Compliance: going along with what the influencer wants without being personally committed ■ Passive resistance: rejecting the influence attempt but not getting in the way of what the influence is trying to do ■ Active resistance: rejecting the influence attempt and actively trying to stop the influencer from doing what she or he is trying to do 13-b Role of National Culture in Influence Effectiveness ● Your ability to effectively influence others is enhanced by high cultural intelligence, or your ability to function effectively in culturally diverse environments ● Understanding diverse cultures, values, and perspectives enhances your sensitivity to what is important to others and how to best influence them ● Influence tactics are most effective when they are consistent with the social values in the national and organizational cultures ○ Ex. consultation is likely more effective in a country with a strong democratic tradition than in a country in which obedience to leaders is a strongly held cultural value 13-3c Persuasion Skills ● Influencing others often requires persuading them to do or to believe something ● Because persuasion gets people to do things differently because they want to, not because they have been ordered to, it is a more effective way to lead ● Recommendations for being more persuasive: ○ Build credibility ○ Do not begin with a hard sell ○ Search for shared ground and be willing to compromise ○ Develop compelling positions ○ Connect with people emotionally ○ Create a continuous feedback loop ○ Be patient 13-3d Upward Influence ● Upward influence: influencing superiors ○ “Mentoring up” ○ Six primary upward influence tactics: ■ Ingratiation: using flattery and acting polite, friendly, or humble to put the supervisor in a good mood ■ Exchange: offering to trade favors or rewards for compliance ■ Rationality: using logic, planning, reason, and compromise ■ Assertiveness: using aggression, nagging, and verbal confrontations

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Coalition formation: seeking the support of other organization members to show a united front ■ Upward appeals: making informal or formal appeals to organizational superiors for intervention ○ Upward influence styles: combinations of upward influence tactics that tend to be used together ■ Shotgun: this style uses the most influence and emphasizes assertiveness and bargaining. Shotgun managers tend to have less job tenure and the greatest needs to obtain personal benefits and “sell” their ideas about how work should be done. This style is associated with the highest levels of job tension and personal stress. ■ Tactician: this style uses an average amount of influence and emphasizes reason. Tactician managers tend to direct organizational subunits involved in non routine work that gives them a skill and knowledge power base. Associated with lowest levels of job tension and personal stress ■ Bystander: this style uses little influence with superiors. Bystander managers tend to direct organizational units doing routine work and generally have little organizational power ■ Ingratiator: this style primarily uses a friendliness strategy but also uses the other influence strategies to some extent. 13-4 Organizational Politics ● Organizational politics: social influence attempts directed at those who can provide rewards that will help promote or protect the self interest of the actor ○ Effectively influencing others through persuasion, generating support, and inspiring trust are the core of effective politics ○ Organizational politics are the result of both individual employees and the culture of the organization ● Common political tactics in organizations: ○ Controlling information: restricting information to certain people ○ Controlling lines of communication: establishing gatekeepers to restrict access to information ○ Using outside experts: outside consultants may seem neutral, but are paid and directed by management to “do their bidding” ○ Controlling the agenda: to ensure only certain topics are discussed ○ Game playing: leaking information, getting only friends to provide feedback, and so on ○ Image building: enlisting “spin doctors” to project a desirable image ○ Building coalitions: befriending powerful others or starting small subgroups to promote specific aims ○ Controlling decision parameters: trying to influence decisions before they are made ○ Eliminating political rivals: this may even mean getting them promoted to get them out of the way 13-4a Causes of Political Behavior

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Conflict is at the core of organizational politics Because political behavior is self-serving, it has the potential to threaten the selfinterests of others ● Scarcity of valued resources (ex. Transfers, raises, office space, budgets) promote political behavior 13-4b Managing Organizational Politics ● Formal rules and procedures can help to reduce the occurrence of political behavior ● Clarifying job expectations, opening the communication process, confronting employees acting inefficiently, unethically, or irresponsibly, and serving as a good role model can all decrease political behavior ● Managing politics is about managing power 13-5 Impression Management ● Being perceived positively by others is related to greater power and influence ● Impression management: the process of portraying a desired image or attitude to control the impression others form of us ○ This does not mean presented image is accurate though ○ Not inherently a bad thing ● Self-monitoring: having a high concern with others’ perception of us and adjusting our behavior to fit the situation ● People who are higher in the personality trait of self-monitoring are more likely to engage in impression management behaviors ● Detecting impression management behaviors: ○ Elevated speaking pitch ○ Speech errors ○ Speech pauses ○ Negative statements ○ Eye shifting ○ Increased pupil dilation ○ Blinking ○ Tactile manipulation ○ Leg fidgeting...