Power and Politics: Chapter 7, Stephen P. Robbins and Nancy Langton, Organizational Behaviour, Third Canadian Edition

Chapter 7
Power and Politics
Chapter 7, Stephen P. Robbins and Nancy Langton, Organizational Behaviour, Third Canadian Edition.
Copyright © 2003 Pearson Education Canada Inc.
Chapter Outline
• A Definition of Power
• Bases of Power
• Dependency: The Key to Power
• Power Tactics
• Empowerment: Giving Power to Employees
• Power in Groups: Coalitions
• The Abuse of Power: Sexual Harassment in the
Workplace
• Politics: Power in Action
Power and Politics
• Power
– A capacity that A has to influence the behaviour of B
so that B acts in accordance with A’s wishes.
• Dependency: B’s relationship to A when A possesses
something that B requires
• Politics
– Behaviour to influence or attempt to influence the
distribution of advantages and disadvantages within
the organization.
Leadership and Power
Power Leadership
• Does not require goal • Requires goal
acceptance agreement
• Focuses on intimidation • Focuses on downward
influence
• Maximizes importance of • Minimizes importance of
lateral and upward lateral and upward
influence influence
• Power focuses on tactics • Leadership research
for gaining compliance focuses on answers
Exhibit 7-1
Measuring Bases of Power
• Coercive power
– The person can make things difficult for people, and you
want to avoid getting him or her angry.
• Power that is based on fear.
• Reward power
– The person is able to give special benefits or rewards to
people, and you find it advantageous to trade favors with
him or her.
• Legitimate power
– The person has the right, considering his or her position and
your job responsibilities, to expect you to comply with
legitimate requests.
Exhibit 7-1
Measuring Bases of Power
• Expert power
– The person has the experience and knowledge to
earn your respect, and you defer to his or her
judgment in some matters.
• Referent power
– You like the person and enjoy doing things for him
or her.
Evaluating the Bases of Power
• Coercive power tends to result in negative performance responses
from individuals, decreases satisfaction, increases mistrust, and
creates fear.
• Legitimate power does not have a negative effect, but does not
generally stimulate employees to improve their attitudes or
performance, and it does not generally result in increased
commitment.
• Reward power may improve performance in a variety of situations
if the rewards are consistent with what the individuals want as
rewards.
• Expert power relies on trust that all relevant information is given
out honestly and completely.
Leaders’ Use of Power
• The least effective power bases are the
ones most likely to be used by managers
– Coercive, legitimate, and reward
– Easiest to implement
• Effective leaders use referent and/or
expert power
Dependency: Key to Power
• Importance
– The things you control must be important
• Scarcity
– A resource must be perceived as scarce
• Non-substitutability
– The resource cannot be substituted with
something else
Increasing Dependency
• To increase the dependency of others on
you, you need to
– Control things viewed as important
– The resources must be viewed as scarce
– The resource must have few or no substitutes
(nonsubstitutability)
Exhibit 7-3
Popularity of Power Tactics:
From Most to Least Popular
When Managers When Managers
Influenced Influenced
Superiors* Subordinates
Most Popular Reason Reason

Coalition Assertiveness
Friendliness Friendliness
Bargaining Coalition
Assertiveness Bargaining
Least Popular Higher authority Higher authority
Sanctions
*The dimension of sanctions is omitted in the scale

that measures upward influence.
Empowerment: Giving Power
to Employees
• The freedom and the ability of employees
to make decisions and commitments
• Managers disagree over definition of
empowerment
– Empowerment as delegating decision making
within a set of clear boundaries
versus
– Empowerment as “a process of risk taking and
personal growth”
Degrees of Empowerment
• Job content
– Tasks and procedures necessary for carrying
out a particular job
• Job context
– Reason for the job and the setting in which it
is done
• Includes organization’s structure, culture, and
reward systems
Stages of Empowerment
• No Discretion
– The employee is assigned the task, given no
discretion, and most likely monitored by a
supervisor
• Typical assembly-line job—highly routine and
repetitive
• Can lead to lowered satisfaction and productivity
• Task setting
– The employee can determine how the job gets
done but has no discretion in determining
what jobs get done
• Typical of most workers who have been
empowered today
• Can lead to greater satisfaction and productivity
• Employees look for new ways to do work, learn
new skills
• Participatory empowerment
– Autonomous work groups that are given
some decision-making authority over both
job content and job context
• Some evidence of higher job satisfaction and
productivity in such groups
• Mission defining
– Groups that set broad goals of project, but
do not carry out the project
• Self-management
– Employees have total decision-making power
for both job content and job context
• Generally reserved for those in top management,
although it is also sometimes granted to high-level
salespeople
• Very rewarding to those who hold it
Exhibit 7-4
Employee Empowerment Grid
Imple-
mentation/ Point D Point E
Follow-up Mission Self-
Defining Management
Decision-Making Authority Over Job Context
Alternative
Choice
Point C
Participatory
INCREASING
Alternative Empowerment
Evaluation
Alternative
Development
Point A Point B
No Task
Discretion Setting
Problem
Identification
Problem Alternative Alternative Alternative Implementation/
Identification Development Evaluation Choice Follow-up
INCREASING
Decision-Making Authority Over Job Content
Conditions for True
Empowerment
• Clear definition of the values and mission of the
company
• Company must help employees acquire the
relevant skills
• Employees need to be supported in their
decision making, and not criticized when they
try to do something extraordinary
• Employees need to be recognized for their
efforts
Exhibit 7-5 Characteristics of
Empowered People
• Sense of self-determination
– Employees are free to choose how to do their work; They are not
micromanaged
• Sense of meaning
– Employees feel that their work is important to them; They care
about what they are doing
• Sense of competence
– Employees are confident about their ability to do their work well;
They know they can perform
• Sense of impact
– Employees people believe they can have influence on their work
unit; Others listen to their ideas
Coalitions
• Two or more individuals who combine their
power to push for or support their demands
• Predictions about coalition formation
– Coalitions seek to maximize their size
– Coalitions more likely to be created when there is
greater task and resource dependence
– Coalitions more likely when tasks are routine
Sexual Harassment
• The Supreme Court of Canada defines
sexual harassment as
– Unwelcome behaviour of a sexual nature in
the workplace that negatively affects the
work environment or leads to adverse job-
related consequences for the employee
Examples of Sexual
Harassment
• Disagreement as to what specifically
constitutes sexual harassment
• Includes
– Unwanted physical touching
– Recurring requests for dates when it is made
clear the person isn’t interested
– Coercive threats that a person will lose her or
his job if she or he refuses a sexual
proposition
Examples of Sexual
Harassment
• More subtle forms (harder to interpret)
– Unwanted looks or comments
– Off-colour jokes
– Sexual artifacts such as nude calendars in the
workplace
– Sexual innuendo
– Misinterpretations of where the line between
“being friendly” ends and “harassment”
begins
Political Behaviour
• Those activities that influence, or attempt
to influence, the distribution of
advantages and disadvantages within the
organization.
– Legitimate: normal everyday behaviour
– Illegitimate: extreme political behaviours
that violate the implied rules of the game
Why Do We Get Politics?
• Organizations are made up of groups and
individuals who have differing values,
goals and interests
• Resources in organizations are limited
• Performance outcomes are not completely
clear and objective
Exhibit 7-6 How Political Is Your
Workplace?
Exhibit 7-7
Factors Influencing Political
Behaviour
Individual factors
• High self-monitors
• Internal locus of control
• High Mach
• Organizational investment
• Perceived job alternatives
• Expectations of success
Favourable outcomes
Political behaviour
Low High • Rewards

Organizational factors • Averted punishments
• Reallocation of resources
• Promotion opportunities
• Low trust
• Role ambiguity
• Unclear performance
evaluation system
• Zero-sum reward practices
• Democratic decision making
• High performance pressures
• Self-serving senior managers
What Individual Factors
Contribute to Politics?
• High self-monitors
• Internal locus of control
• High mach
• Organizational investment
• Perceived job alternatives
• Expectations of success
What Organizational Factors
Contribute to Politics?
• Reallocation of rewards
• Promotion opportunities
• Low trust
• Role ambiguity
• Unclear performance evaluation system
• Zero-sum reward practices
• Democratic decision-making
• High performance pressure
• Self-serving senior managers
Types of Political Activity
• Attacking or blaming others
• Controlling information
• Forming coalitions
• Networking
• Creating obligations
• Managing impressions
Impression Management
• The process by which individuals attempt
to control the impression others form of
them
• More likely used by high self-monitors
than low self-monitors
– High self-monitors try to read the situation
Exhibit 7-8 Impression
Management (IM) Techniques
• Conformity
– Agreeing with someone else’s opinion in order to gain his or her approval.
• Excuses
– Explanations of a predicament-creating event aimed at minimizing the apparent severity of
the predicament.
• Apologies
– Admitting responsibility for an undesirable event and simultaneously seeking to get a
pardon for the action.
• Acclamations
– Explanation of favorable events to maximize the desirable implications for oneself.
• Flattery
– Complimenting others about their virtues in an effort to make oneself appear perceptive
and likable.
• Favours
– Doing something nice for someone to gain that person’s approval.
• Association
– Enhancing or protecting one’s image by managing information about people and things
with which one is associated.
Making Office Politics Work
• Nobody wins unless everybody wins
• Don’t just ask for opinions—change them
• Everyone expects to be paid back
• Success can create opposition
Summary and Implications
• Power is a two-way street.
• Few employees relish being powerless in their jobs and
organization.
• People respond differently to various power bases.
– Employees working under coercive managers are unlikely to be
committed,
– and more likely to resist the manager.
• Expert power is the most strongly and consistently
related to effective employee performance.
Summary and Implications
• The power of the manager may also play a role in
determining job satisfaction.
• The effective manager accepts the political nature of
organizations.
• The more political that employees perceive an
organization, the lower their satisfaction.
• Regardless of level in the organization, some people are
more politically “astute” than others.
• The politically naive and inept tend to feel continually
powerless.
OB at Work
HR Implications
Dealing with Sexual Harassment
Recommendations to Handle
Sexual Harassment
• Developing formal avenues to consult with
women about integrating into nontraditional
jobs
• Planning work camps with the needs of women
in mind
• Providing better on-site education about sexual
harassment
• Creating an employment equity plan covering
recruitment, training, and promotion
Breakout Group Exercises
• Form small groups to discuss the following topics
1. Describe an incident where you tried to use political
behaviour in order to get something you wanted. What
tactics did you use?
2. In thinking about the incident described above, were
your tactics effective? Why?
3. Describe an incident where you saw someone engaging
in politics. What was your reaction to observing the
political behaviour? Under what circumstances do you
think political behaviour is appropriate?
Working With Others Exercise
Instructions for Role Play
• Working in your group, read the
instructions for the assignment
• You have 15 minutes to develop a 3
minute role play, using the source of
power assigned to your group
• You MUST stick to the time limit
Instructions for Role Play
• Working in your assigned group, read the
instructions for the assignment
• You have 15 minutes to develop a 3
minute role play, using the source of
power assigned to your group
• You MUST stick to the time limit
Role Play Scenario
• You are the leader of a group that is trying to
develop a website for a new client. One of your
group members, who was assigned the task of
researching and analyzing the websites of your
client’s competition, has failed twice to bring the
analysis to scheduled meetings, even though the
member knew the assignment was due.
Consequently, your group is falling behind in
getting the website developed. As leader of the
group, you have decided to speak with this team
member, and use your specific brand of power to
influence the individual’s behaviour.
Sources of Power
• COERCIVE: depends on fear. It is the ability to punish or withhold
privileges.
• REWARD: Based on one's control over things that others desire such as
vacations, raises, promotions and office locations.
• LEGITIMATE: person holding power has right to it because of position or
role. Thus the person has a formal right to direct others in certain matters
and the subordinates have a duty to obey those directions.
• EXPERT: the perception by others that one has superior judgment or
knowledge on some topics, often specialized in nature. Unlike information
power, this power base does not involve sharing of the facts or reasoning
behind a decision.
• REFERENT: develops out of subordinates' admiration for leader and
his/her desire to model behaviour and attitudes after that person. The
person builds feelings of support, liking, admiration and respect with
subordinates.
Mean Responses to Type of
Influence
Q#1 Q#2 Q#3 Q#4
Comply Temp. vs. Resistant vs. Worse vs.
Long Acceptant Better
Coercive 4 3.1 2.1 1.6

Reward 3.9 3.6 4.2 4.2
Legitimate 3.3 2.1 2.4 1.2
Expert 3.7 3.3 3.4 3.6
Referent 2.9 2.2 3.4 4.6
Discussion Questions
• Which kind of influence is most likely to
immediately result in the desired behaviour?
• Which will have the most long-lasting effects?
• What effect will using a particular base of power
have on the ongoing relationship?
• Which form of power will others find most
acceptable? least acceptable?
• In which kinds of situations is each kind of power
most effective and useful? least effective and
useful?
Purpose of Exercise
• Observe different types of power, and see how
they affect you
• Develop an understanding for which types of
power are more likely to achieve positive (or
negative) effects
– Which gets the desired behaviour
– Which has most long lasting effect
– How does it affect relationship
– Which is most acceptable

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What are the different bases of power discussed in the document?

What is the difference between leadership and power according to the document?

Chapter 7

Power and Politics

Most Popular Reason Reason

*The dimension of sanctions is omitted in the scale

Decision-Making Authority Over Job Content

Low High • Rewards

Dealing with Sexual Harassment

Coercive 4 3.1 2.1 1.6

Legitimate 3.3 2.1 2.4 1.2

Expert 3.7 3.3 3.4 3.6

Referent 2.9 2.2 3.4 4.6

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