Every organization is a living organism with a set of peculiarities that should be taken into consideration while creating and operating it. Surely, there is a set of regulations all members of the organization have to comply with. However, there is also a set of tendencies, processes and phenomena that are present in every social group united by one business activity without anyone’s wish or effort. An organization is first of all a group with its dynamics of development, with the processes of distributing power and authorities, with its hierarchical structure, influence and expertise of some members etc. Thus, it is highly important to understand all these processes when dealing with organizational structure, management and leadership issues.
Correlation of power and politics within an organization can acquire critical importance at times. It goes without saying that in some cases the major part of conflicts in a company may arise from the inconsistency of power, or wrong politics exercised inside its structure, or the wrong policies of exercising power adopted in a certain company. This is why it is necessary to realize the fact that adequate understanding of relations of power and politics in an organization is really essential for building up sound power relations that will assist managers as well as employees to conduct their everyday working activities well and comply with the regulations of the company, its ethical code and other standards.
At the very beginning of the discussion, it is necessary to find the key difference between power and influence – according to the opinion of Schermerhorn et al. (2005), the essence of power is in the ability to make a person do what somebody wants, while influence is the behavioral response to the realization of power. Power comes from two sources – the leading position in the hierarchy of the organization the person occupies, thus being entitled to some privileges and being given the authority (positional power) and the power one gets because of some individual qualities that make him or her attractive for others giving him or her influence over them (personal power). It is important to remember that the person who occupies a leading (managerial) position always possesses positional power because the position he or she occupies in the company already presupposes having it. Nevertheless, even the representative of senior management may not have personal power, which will negatively influence their interrelations with colleagues: people accept positional power as a must and it does not raise any commitment or motivation in them; however, the impact of personal power on people is partly subconscious, thus creating empathy towards the leader and the genuine wish to assist him or her.
There are different types of positional power that require thorough consideration: these are reward power (influencing subordinates through a set of rewards for well-accomplished tasks), coercive power (influence through different kinds of punishment – verbal or financial, detention etc.), legitimate power (influence through the inherent right to control actions of subordinates), process power (authority to control the production process and interfere with any stage thereof), information power (regulated access to information) and representative power (the ability to speak for the group of subordinates) (Schermerhorn et al., 2005). These kinds of power may be well seen in the way senior management representatives or politicians control the sphere of their authority.
It is obvious that reward power is a constructive way of dealing with subordinates – it may give them positive emotions and raise their commitment to the working place. It is important to remember that only satisfied employees will provide adequate output, while those who do not like their work and are not devoted to their leader will always remain at the average level. The opposite effect may be witnessed from the examples of applying coercive power in leadership. It is destructive and brings nothing but fear and dissatisfaction.
“The least effective leaders use coercive power, which creates fear among people of the adverse consequences of not complying with the wishes of the leader. It is temporary in its impact and it creates negative feelings and attitudes. It is associated with an extreme form of the directive style of leadership – tyranny” (Gill, 2006).
The case described by Gill (2006) to illustrate his point about the inefficiency of coercive power pertains to the mode of power established by Saddam Hussein who intimidated the Iraqi people and constantly kept them in fear by intensifying the terror and showing himself as a kind person at the same time. It is clear that Hussein was far from a normal person, but his nation suffered many years under his reign because he saw power not as a means but as an ultimate goal, thus leaving no hope for improvement of the situation (Gill, 2006).
Proceeding to the analysis of personal power, its sources that are known come from unique personal qualities and charisma (referent power), and sometimes also pertain to expertise and experience of the person (expert power), individual respect he or she has obtained within the organization. There have been many examples of people exercising referent power in politics, which proved to be highly efficient and productive.
“Showing courage and taking personal risk and responsibility instill trust. The leader gains referent power. Leaders like Churchill and Eisenhower took the blame for their failures; Hitler did not. Effective leaders also display a sense of purpose, persistence and trust in others” (Gill, 2006).
So, the two types of power are exercised simultaneously by some people; others are granted only one type thereof. Nevertheless, as it has already been mentioned, it is a common case that a person having positional power usually possesses personal power as well, in another way it is hard to imagine how he or she managed to be promoted to a leading position. In this situation it is crucial to keep in mind that these two types of power have to be thoroughly weighed and correlated, forming a productive combination but not a destructive mixture.
This notion, the one of balancing the two types of power, is wonderfully described by Dr. Dilip Abayasekara (2007) in his article devoted to this topic. The author explains the while complicity of the issue and tells why the discrepancies cause conflicts. He gives an example of the well-balanced leader telling the story about Abraham Lincoln coming to a general for an official talk. Leaving aside the fact that Lincoln had to wait for the general who was away, he was then refused a meeting under the pretext that the general was too tired to meet the President.
Lincoln’s Secretary of State was livid upon hearing this lack of respect for the President. President Lincoln thought for a moment, decided that they should leave the general alone, and left the premises without once raising his voice. Keep in mind that this is the same President who did not refrain from using his positional authority to remove ineffective generals from leadership of the Union Army (Abayasekara, 2007).
This case shows how a true leader has to think his actions through and be occupied not only with considerations of his or her personal interest, but to be able to judge about the situation on a larger scale: only this way the combination will work out. Nonetheless, one should know that before thinking about how to combine the two types of power it is necessary to consider the ways to obtain it, which are varied and diverse, demanding different types of actions from individuals.
Among the ways to build positional power one should remember the following ones. First of all, they include demonstrating work unit relevance to organizational goals and needs (Schermerhorn et al., 2005). This way the individual will be able to prove his being worth the position of a manager who will be entitled to a certain number of authorities and privileges.
Another strategy to achieve the same goal is to increase the task relevance of one’s own activities and work unit’s activities. This is also an efficient means to produce the necessary effect and gain support as well as respect of senior management and receive promotional opportunities. Besides, one should remember about such an option as attempting to define tasks so that they are difficult to evaluate. This will help create a rather ambiguous picture capable of an individual varies according to circumstances (Schermerhorn et al., 2005).
Building up personal power is also a diverse and multi-faceted way of achieving success in an organization requiring a set of actions from the person willing to achieve success in the described sphere. Here such strategies as building expertise (training, education, participation in professional associations), learning political savvy (learning ways to negotiate, persuade and understand goals and means) as well as enhancing likeability (pleasant personality characteristics and appealing behavior) are relevant and helpful. One should consider them carefully on the way to increasing personal power, because it is obvious that this kind of power is much harder to establish than the first one, being built on the principles of personal attractiveness but not the objectively received position.
Touching upon the topic of correlation of politics and power in an organization, it is highly important to mention tactics of increasing influence that actually represent politics in a company. Among the commonly adopted strategies of achieving that aim one should recollect reason, friendliness, coalition, bargaining, assertiveness, higher authority and sanctions (Schermerhorn et al., 2005). As an example of successful implementation of these tactics it is suitable to consider the case of the space shuttle program that became a disaster because of the inability to unify the strategies that have just been discussed:
“Bolman and Deal offer the space shuttle program as an example of a strategic effort backed by a complex coalition consisting of NASA, contractors, Congress, the White House, the military, the media, and even portions of the public…At the time of the Challenger shuttle disaster, both Thiokol and NASA were under increasing pressure to produce on schedule at programmed cost. The decision to launch on that fateful day was made when political forces overcame technical considerations” (Leveraging Power and Politics, 2009).
Drawing a conclusion from everything that has been said in the present paper and the analysis of relations of power and politics being unified and correlated in the organizational environment, it is necessary to note that politics is an indispensable element of leadership in any organization and people having power should be skillful politicians to keep it as long as they want to. Power and politics exist hand in hand and adapt to the changes taking place in an organization, so in order to obtain and keep power of any type an individual has to sense all changes and possible fluctuations in the company and react promptly and wisely.
References
- Abayasekara, D. (2007). A Common Leadership Challenge.
- Gill, R. (2006). Theory and practice of leadership. SAGE, 396 pp.
- Leveraging Power and Politics (2009). National Defense University.
- Schermerhorn, J.R., Hunt, J.G., and Osborn, R.N. (2005). Organizational Behavior, 9th ed. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.