Power Part2
part1
Summary of the relationship between power, influence, and leadership. The key to this framework is that leadership as an influence process is a function of the elements of the leader’s sources of power and the degree of acceptance with the interests and needs of the subordinates.
In the figure, sources of power are divided into personal and organizational. Legitimate, reward, and coercive powers are organizational and are part of the leader’s job. Policies and procedures prescribe them.
Expert and referent powers are personal and emanate from a leader’s personality. Research on Sources of Power One review of several studies that examined the sources of power concluded the following (Pfeffer, 1993):
Legitimate power can be depended on initially, but continued reliance on it may create dissatisfaction, resistance, and frustration among employees; if legitimate power does not coincide with expert power, there may be negative effects on productivity; and dependence on legitimate power may lead to only minimum compliance while increasing resistance.
Reward power can directly influence the frequency of employee-performance behaviours in the short run. Prolonged use of reward power can lead to a dependent relationship in which subordinates feel manipulated and become dissatisfie
Part2
Organizational Power Legitimate Reward Coercive Personal Power Expert Referent Outcomes Behaviour Performance Task
CompletionJobSatisfactionAbsenteeismTurnoverLeader Subordinate Although coercive power may lead to temporary compliance by subordinates, it produces the undesirable side effects of frustration, fear, revenge, and alienation. This in turn may lead to poor performance, dissatisfaction, and turnover.
Expert power is closely related to a climate of trust. A leader’s influence can be internalized by subordinates; that is, when a leader uses expert power, attitudinal conformity and internalized motivation on the part of subordinates will result. This in turn requires less surveillance of employees by the leader than does reward or coercive power.
Referent power can lead to enthusiastic and unquestioning trust, compliance, loyalty, and commitment from subordinates.
Like expert power, considerably less surveillance of employees is required. It is possible for a person to possess all of the sources of power at the same time. In fact, the most powerful leaders—like those mentioned previously—have sources of power that include all five forms.
Of the three sources of organizational power (legitimate, reward, coercive) and two sources of personal power (expert, referent), which are the most effective?
Part3
Generally, the personal sources of power are more strongly related to employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and performance than are the organizational power sources.
One source of organizational power—coercive power—is negatively related to employee satisfaction, commitment, and job performance (Carson, Carson, & Roe, 1993; Podsakoff & Strassheim, 1985).
Furthermore, the various sources of power are interrelated. For example, the use of coercive power by managers may reduce their referent power, and the use coercive and reward power may lead to reduced expert power (Anguini’s, Nesler, Quigley, & Tedeschi,1994).
However, managers with expert power are likely to have legitimate power because people accept their expertise as a basis for their authority. In addition, the higher a person’s rank in the organization, the more legitimate power that individual possesses.
This, in turn, tends to be accompanied by greater opportunities to use reward and coercive power (Huber, 1981). Thus, depending on the situation, leaders may use the various sources of power together in varying combinations.
One interesting finding is the role that procedural justice may play in the sources of power used by leaders. Although the sources of power are interrelated as well as related to work outcomes, they are also mediated by employees’ perceptions of social justice (Mossholder, Bennett, Kemery, & Wesolowski, 1998).
What does this mean? It means that employees evaluate their perceptions concerning the fairness with which leaders use the sources of power and respond accordingly.
Part5
French and Raven identified five sources of power that can be grouped into two categories: organizational power (legitimate, reward, coercive) and personal power (expert and referent). Generally, the personal sources of power are more strongly related to employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance than are the organizational power sources.
One source of organizational power—coercive power—is negatively related to work outcomes. However, the various sources of power should not be thought of as separate from each other. Sometimes leaders use them together in varying combinations depending on the situation. A new concept of power, referred to as “empowerment,” has become a major strategy for improving work outcomes
Part4
Specifically, when employees perceive that the way leaders use the various sources of power seem fair, they respond more favourably. This research leads to a new concept of power: empowerment of organization members.
Empowerment of Organization Members Diane Tracy, a New York management consultant, suggests a new concept of power in her bestselling book, The Power Pyramid: How to Get Power by Giving It Away (1990).
The concept has been referred to in the literature as “empowerment.” The new advice is that you can achieve ultimate power by giving it to the people who work for you. Tracy says that power operates under the same principle as love:
The more you give to others, the more you receive in return. Also, she suggests that leaders can maximize their own power and their opportunities for success by enabling the employees they supervise also to achieve their own sense of power and success (Tracy, 2001).
Today, many organizations are recommending a flattening of the pyramid. These leaders are beginning to see the need to involve organization members at all levels in making decisions and solving problems. Real power, according to Tracy, flows from bottom up, rather than from the top down “…
If you are successful in giving your peoplepower, they will surely lift you on their shoulders to heights of power and success you never dreamed possible…” (Tracy, 1990, 2)
Power is the ability to influence others. One of the most influential theories of power comes from the work of French and Raven, who attempted to determine the sources of power leaders use to influence others.
