subject: Power, Politics And Persuasion [print this page] Many executives are uncomfortable with power or office politics, viewing them as the dark side of workplace behavior. They believe morale and commitment erode when politics dominate the environment.
But research clearly shows that being politically savvy and building a power base pay off.
Sources of Power
There are three sources of power in an organization: positional, relational and personal:
1.Positional power: Your title and job status confer some level of formal power.
2.Relationships: Informal power stems from the relationships and alliances you form with others. If you do a favor for someone, the law of reciprocity impacts your relationship.
3.Personal: Some people generate power based on their knowledge, expertise, technical competencies and ability to articulate ideas or a vision that others will follow. Your communication skills, charisma and trustworthiness help determine your personal power.
Open to Influence
Executives and managers who are open to peers and subordinates input garner greater respect than those who resist others influence. An openness to influence demonstrates trust and respect, which become reciprocal and contagious.
You can offer goods and services to a potential ally in exchange for cooperation: technical assistance, information, lease of space or equipment, a plum assignment and the like. Understand what others want or value.
Avoiding Power
Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Universitys Graduate School of Business and author of Power: Why Some People Have ItAnd Others Dont, cites three barriers that cause executives to shy away from using power to extend their influence.
1.The belief that the world is a just place: If you do a good job and behave appropriately, do you assume things will take care of themselves? When others make self-aggrandizing, envelope-pushing power plays, do you dismiss them instead of watching to see if you can learn something?
Believing in a just world makes you less powerful by: a.Limiting your willingness to learn from all situations and people even those you dont like or respectb.Anesthetizing you to the need to proactively build a power base an outcome that blinds you to potentially career-damaging landmines2.Leadership literature and popular business books: Many successful authors will tout their careers as models to emulate, but theyll often gloss over the power plays theyve used to get to the top. 3.Your delicate self-esteem: Any experience of failure puts their self-esteem at risk. If you fail to actively seek and gain power, you wont view your lack of it a personal failure a phenomenon known as self-handicapping.The Power of PowerWhen you need others to give their best efforts in the face of differing ideas and opinions, you need leverage and powerful people use several strategies to advance their agendas.1. Leverage Resources.Whenever you have discretionary control over resources money, equipment, space and/or information you can use them to build a power base.Helping people evokes reciprocity, a universal drive to want to repay a favor even without making it explicit that theres a quid pro quo.Money is not the sole source of leverage. Access to information or key people can be even more valuable.2. Shape Behaviors with Rewards and Punishments.In international companies and governments, leaders reward those who help them and punish those who stand in their way. You may disagree with this approach, but it remains an important tool for building a power base.Leaders who effectively wield influence make it clear that subordinates will reap rewards if they help and problems if they refuse to pitch in.3. Make the Vision Compelling.Its easier to exercise power when youre aligned with a compelling, socially valuable objective. Similarly, power struggles inside companies seldom revolve around blatant self-interest. At the moment of crisis and decision, clever combatants typically invoke shareholders interests, company values and mission, and causes greater than short-term or personal interests.Getting others to make changes and do things your way is risky and fraught with personal peril. Making your organization a better place is often at odds with personal advancement. You cant do it without power. Just be sure to create power in and with others, as opposed to using power over others. by: Patsiblogsquad
