ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Document on Chapter: 13 “Power and Politics”

Submitted To
Ms. Malahat
Submitted By
Momal Tajwar 04
Naila Azhar 06
Sana Mehar 08
Areej Akhlaq 10
BBA III (2014—2018)

JANUARY 16, 2017

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCES
Lahore College for Women University
 POWER AND POLITICS
POWER
Power is the ability to influence other people. It refers to the capacity to affect the behavior of the
subordinate with the control of resources. Power is important as a dynamic concept in organization
behavior. Power is the potential to change others behavior and attitude. Power is a tool that,
depending on how it’s used lead to either positive or negative outcomes in an organization.
Examples:
 The most important factor in the power is the function of dependency for example the
employee’s dependency on boss in the company. A boss has power over employee because
he or she controls something which employee’s desire (salary, reward).
 Another example is the president of a corporation has certain powers because of the office
he holds in the corporation.

CONTRASTING LEADERSHIP AND POWER

Following table is illustrating contrast of leadership and power:
BASES OF POWER
There are two general groups of bases or sources of power:

1. Formal Power
Formal power is based on an individual’s position in an organization. No matter how much formal
power a leader may have, if their behavior over time doesn’t earn and maintain respect, trust,
reliability, and likability, the leaders’ impact will be greatly lessened. In effect, their actual
leadership impact will be far below par for the position they currently hold. That leader is in
danger of losing their job, and should be in that risk as they haven’t yet shown true leadership
ability on par with their formal leadership role. And those who have less formal power, sometimes
have the skills and way of being that inspires, motivates, enrolls others, and builds credibility and
likability.
Formal power is further divided into three categories;
 Coercive Power
“The ability to punish if expectations are not met.”
Coercive power is derived from a person’s ability to influence others via threats and
punishment. People who wield coercive power can influence other’s people behavior by
their ability to threaten and punish others. Coercive power provides a leader with the means
to physically harm, bully, humiliate, or deny love, affection or resources to others. These
action might include firing, demotion etc.
Example: The Vice president of Sales who threatens sales people to meet their goals or
get replaced.

 Reward Power
“The ability to reward.”
Reward power arises from the ability of a person to influence the allocation of incentives
in an organization. These incentives include salary increments, positive appraisal and
promotions.in an organization people who wield reward power tend to influence the actions
of other employees. Reward power motivates employees.
Example: The supervisor who provides employees bounces when they meet an objective
she sets for a project.
  Legitimate Power
“The authority granted to someone stemming from
a position in a group or organization.”
Legitimate power comes from having a position of power in an organization such as being
the boss or member of the organization. This power comes when the employees recognize
the authority of the individual. It’s determined by the hierarchy of the organization; junior
manager report to senior managers and senior manager’s report to directors.
Example: The president of a corporation has certain powers because of the office he holds
in the corporation.

2. Personal Power
Power is the ability to influence or change an outcome. Personal power is a source of influence
and authority a person has over his or her followers. Where does a person get this power from?
In short, the power is determined by his or her followers. According to Robert Firestone, there
are two forms of power, negative and positive. Here is a description of positive form of power,
Personal power.
“Personal power is based on strength, confidence, and competence that individuals gradually
acquire in the course of their development. It is self-assertion, and a natural, healthy striving
for love, satisfaction and meaning in one’s interpersonal world. This type of power represents
a movement toward self-realization and transcendent goals in life; its primary aim is mastery
of self, not others. Personal power is more an attitude or state of mind than an attempt to
maneuver or control others. It is based on competence, vision, positive personal qualities, and
service. When externalized it is likely to be more generous, creative and humane than other
forms of power.”

Personal power is further divided into Referent Power and Expert Power.
 Referent Power
“The desire for a feeling of oneness and
acceptance in a valued relationship.”
 Referent power in leadership is the ability of a leader to encourage the respect and
admiration of his followers in such a way that they wish to be like him. Referent power is
based upon identification with, attraction to, or respect for the leader. Group members gain
a sense of intrinsic personal satisfaction from identification with a referent leader. This
kind of power relationship is dependent upon the feeling to work harder for someone who
is liked or admired. To gain and maintain a leader’s approval and acceptance, a follower is
likely to do what the leader asks, develop a similar attitude, and even imitate the leader’s
behavior.
Example: Referent power is based upon a leader modeling his behavior to demonstrate
appropriate conduct and decision-making. Employees will observe a manager's behavior
and act as they believe their managers would act in the same situation. In other words, you
refer to what you believe the manager would do and do the same; the manager becomes a
point of reference for your behavior. You may not even know that you are modeling your
behavior after your manager.
As you can imagine, this type of power relies heavily upon the trust of employees in their
manager and developing employee empowerment: allowing employees to make decisions
in certain work situations. Trust and enabling employee empowerment takes some time to
develop. Consequently, referent power may not work well in organizations with high rates
of turnover of employees.

 Expert Power
“The extent of specialized skills or knowledge
followers attribute to a leader.”
Expert power is power based upon employees' perception that a manager or some other
member of an organization has a high level of knowledge or a specialized set of skills that
other employees or members of the organization do not possess. Expert power can actually
turn power dynamics upside down because its use is not limited to the formal leaders of an
organization. Any member of an organization who has a high level of knowledge or a set
of specialized skills that others in the organization do not possess may exert expert power.
Expertise enables leaders to perform tasks and provides them with a better understanding
of the world around them. However, expertise is only a source of power if others are
 dependent upon the leader for the skill, knowledge or ability the leader possesses. The
more important a problem is to the follower, and the more the leader is supposed to be an
expert in that area, the greater power the expert leader will have.
Example: In meeting or corporate communications, experts make recommendations based
on their knowledge of a field. People are persuaded to follow those recommendations
because they feel that the expert's knowledge and experience make them likely to offer
good suggestions.

Most Effective Power

Of the three bases of Formal power (coercive, reward, legitimate) and two bases of Personal
power (Expert, Referent), which is most important to have?
Research suggest clearly that personal sources of power are most effective. Both referent and
expert power are positively related to employees’ satisfaction with supervision, their
organizational commitment, and their performance, whereas reward and legitimate power seems
to be unrelated to these outcomes. One source of formal power, that is coercive power, is
negatively related to employee satisfaction and commitment.

POLITICS
Politics refers to use the power that an individual have and by which he can influence the acts and
decisions of others. In short words, we can say politics is power in action. When employees in
organization convert their power into action, we can describe them as engaged in politics.
Power Politics
Examples:
 When a manager says an employee to do his personal work in spite of employee’s
role work in the organization, otherwise he will fire him from the job. Then
manager is using his power to influence the behavior of an employee.
 If some employee do fraud with organization, and another employee get know that
and claiming share that money (that he gain through fraud) otherwise I will inform
to managers about your this act. So, this is an example of politics.
  If some politician says vote for me I will solve all your problems and after winning
the election he doesn’t do anything, then we can say that politician plays politics
with public for getting votes.

Organizational Politics
This type of politics focuses on the use of power to affect decision making in an organization or
on self-serving. Political behavior in organizations consists of activities that are not required as
part of an individual’s formal role but that influence, or attempt to influence, the distribution of
advantages and disadvantages within the organization. Political behavior is outside specified job
requirements. It requires some attempt to use power bases. It includes efforts to influence the goals,
criteria, or processes used for decision making.

Examples:
 Key information from decision makers
 Joining a coalition
 Whistle blowing
 Spreading rumors
 Leaking confidential information to media
 Lobbying
Reality of Politics
Is politics really exist in the organization or not?
 Many managers believe that political behavior is a major part of organizational life.
 Some says that political behavior is necessary evil to do in the organization, who never
uses this, will have hard time of getting things done.
Organization is a combination of people with different interest, values and goals, this sets up the
potential for conflict over the allocation of limited resources such as bonus, promotion, project
responsibilities, and salary adjustments.
If resources are abundant, every employee can satisfy goal and can achieve its rewards. But in
contrast if resources are limited competition arises.
Example: If there are 200 employees working in the organization and promotion can be given
only 16 employees then competition between employees arises and leads to politics to achieve the
goals.
Therefore, to answer the question whether it is possible for an organization to be politics-free, we
can say “yes”_ if all members of that organization holds the same goals and interests, if
organizational resources are not scare, and if performance outcomes are clear and objective. But
the problem is this that doesn’t describe the organizational world in which most of us live.