Authority Does Come from Title, but it is earned through actions. Inept executives fritter away their authority by their behaviour, taking the counsel of none but themselves and failing to listen and learn from others. Authority is what holds leadership promise together. With it, you can lead; without it, you might as well do something else.
Many leaders come to authority naturally; they embrace it totally and wield it like a sword to demonstrate their power. Others adopt it reluctantly, seemingly shirking from the responsibility. In truth, neither approach is wholly right nor wholly wrong. Leaders must embrace command, but they must recognize that their power stems from the people they lead.
There are five attributes of authority as it applies to leadership:
• Decisiveness. Leaders need to exert their ideas. The ability to make tough decisions is crucial to a leader’s ability to lead.
• Accomplishment. Leaders must, plain and simple, get things done. We want our leaders to do what they tell us they will do. When the CEO of a public company promises a new product or service as well as increased earnings and profits, he must deliver.
• Persuasiveness. Operating in a vacuum—or in a closed office—does not a leader make. No leader of an enterprise larger than a three-person operation can do much by him. Sometimes autocratic executives will get into trouble because their heavy-handed management style turns people off. Then when the heat is on and they need the support of others, they will often find no one standing behind them. All leaders need the cooperation and collaboration of others.
• Courage. Leaders must hold to the power of their beliefs and convictions, provided they are ethical, honest, and in keeping with organizational goals and beliefs. Standing up to bully bosses requires guts. Standing up to shareholders who want job cuts for short-term profits also takes guts. Standing up to public perceptions that seem reasonable but are unrealistic and uninformed also requires a measure of guts. But courage is essential to leadership.
• Inspiration. Entrepreneurial ventures have something of a moon-shot quality to them. These ventures, be it a new software company or a technology outfitter or a service provider, require a healthy dose of dreaming to succeed. People who work for those ventures feel jazzed when they come to work; they are inspired by doing something new, different, and beneficial for their customers and themselves.
• Decisiveness. Accomplishment. Persuasiveness. Courage. Inspiration. These attributes reinforce your authority to lead.
While authority is essential to leadership, it does not come automatically with rank or position. Authority, like trust, must be earned, but here’s the difference. Trust requires time to develop. Authority, especially in most hierarchies, is assumed. People will grant you permission to lead.
Authority is a divisible commodity that managers ration among work group members via the process of delegation. In this sense it is the basis for organizational order, logic, and control. It is the basis of status and hierarchy in the organization.
A view of power in authority terms connotes a system of dependencies, and, in this situation, distribution is the key issue. Each member of the organization relates to others in a power role relationship that constrains each member. If one gains power, it is at the expense of others in the group. If one gains, others lose. All of us can exercise authority over other people and, in turn, can be under another’s authority. It is part of all organized group activity that results in enhancement or limitation of our ability to do. Thus, power is a part of organizational concepts such as authority, control, direction, competition, conflict, coordination, planning, budgeting, staffing, and all other administrative functions.
Showing posts with label Power and Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Power and Politics. Show all posts
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Personal Power
Personal power resides in the individual and is independent of that individual's position within an organization. Personal power is important in many well-managed firms, as managers need to supplement the power of their formal positions. Four bases of personal power are expertise, rational persuasion, reference, and coalitions.
Expert power is the ability to control another person's behavior through the possession of knowledge, experience, or judgment that the other person does not have but needs. A subordinate obeys a supervisor possessing expert power because the latter usually knows more about what is to be done or how it is to be done than does the subordinate. Expert power is relative, not absolute. So if you are the best cook in the kitchen, you have expert power until a real chef enters. Then the chef has the expert power.
Rational persuasion is the ability to control another's behavior because, through the individual's efforts, the person accepts the desirability of an offered goal and a reasonable way of achieving it. Much of what a supervisor does on a day-to-day basis involves rational persuasion up, down, and across the organization. Rational persuasion involves both explaining the desirability of expected outcomes and showing how specific actions will achieve these outcomes. Relational persuasion relies on trust.
Referent power is the ability to control another's behavior because the person wants to identify with the power source. In this case, a subordinate obeys the manager because he or she wants to behave, perceive, or believe as the manager does. This obedience may occur, for example, because the subordinate likes the boss personally and therefore tries to do things the way the boss wants them done. In a sense, the subordinate attempts to avoid doing anything that would interfere with the boss-subordinate relationship.
A person's referent power can be enhanced when the individual taps into the morals held by another or shows a clearer long-term path to a morally desirable end. Individuals with the ability to tap into these more esoteric aspects of corporate life have "charisma" and "vision." Followership is not based on what the subordinate will get for specific actions or specific levels of performance, but on what the individual represents—a role model and a path to a morally desired future. For example, an employee can increase his or her referent power by showing subordinates how they can develop better relations with each other and how they can serve the greater good.
Coalition power is the ability to control another's behavior indirectly because the individual has an obligation to someone as part of a larger collective interest. Coalitions are often built around issues of common interest.To build a coalition, individuals negotiate trade-offs in order to arrive at a common position. Individuals may also trade across issues in granting support for one another. These trade-offs and trades represent informational obligations of support. To maintain the coalition, individuals may be asked to support a position on an issue and act in accordance with the desires of the supervisor. When they do, there is a reciprocal obligation to support them on their issues. For example, members of a department should support a budget increase.Developing Trust to Build Personal Power
The key to ethically developing power is to build trust. To build trust, I you should, at a minimum:
• Always honour implied and explicit social contracts.
• Seek to prevent, avoid, and rectify harm to others.
• Respect the unique needs of others.
These reciprocal obligations can extend to a network of individuals as well. A network of mutual support provides a powerful collective front to protect members and to accomplish shared interests. Think about all of the required courses you must take to graduate; the list was probably developed by a coalition of professors led by their department chairs. Faculty members who support a required course from another department expect help from the supported department in getting their course on the list.
Expert power is the ability to control another person's behavior through the possession of knowledge, experience, or judgment that the other person does not have but needs. A subordinate obeys a supervisor possessing expert power because the latter usually knows more about what is to be done or how it is to be done than does the subordinate. Expert power is relative, not absolute. So if you are the best cook in the kitchen, you have expert power until a real chef enters. Then the chef has the expert power.
Rational persuasion is the ability to control another's behavior because, through the individual's efforts, the person accepts the desirability of an offered goal and a reasonable way of achieving it. Much of what a supervisor does on a day-to-day basis involves rational persuasion up, down, and across the organization. Rational persuasion involves both explaining the desirability of expected outcomes and showing how specific actions will achieve these outcomes. Relational persuasion relies on trust.
Referent power is the ability to control another's behavior because the person wants to identify with the power source. In this case, a subordinate obeys the manager because he or she wants to behave, perceive, or believe as the manager does. This obedience may occur, for example, because the subordinate likes the boss personally and therefore tries to do things the way the boss wants them done. In a sense, the subordinate attempts to avoid doing anything that would interfere with the boss-subordinate relationship.
A person's referent power can be enhanced when the individual taps into the morals held by another or shows a clearer long-term path to a morally desirable end. Individuals with the ability to tap into these more esoteric aspects of corporate life have "charisma" and "vision." Followership is not based on what the subordinate will get for specific actions or specific levels of performance, but on what the individual represents—a role model and a path to a morally desired future. For example, an employee can increase his or her referent power by showing subordinates how they can develop better relations with each other and how they can serve the greater good.
Coalition power is the ability to control another's behavior indirectly because the individual has an obligation to someone as part of a larger collective interest. Coalitions are often built around issues of common interest.To build a coalition, individuals negotiate trade-offs in order to arrive at a common position. Individuals may also trade across issues in granting support for one another. These trade-offs and trades represent informational obligations of support. To maintain the coalition, individuals may be asked to support a position on an issue and act in accordance with the desires of the supervisor. When they do, there is a reciprocal obligation to support them on their issues. For example, members of a department should support a budget increase.Developing Trust to Build Personal Power
The key to ethically developing power is to build trust. To build trust, I you should, at a minimum:
• Always honour implied and explicit social contracts.
• Seek to prevent, avoid, and rectify harm to others.
• Respect the unique needs of others.
These reciprocal obligations can extend to a network of individuals as well. A network of mutual support provides a powerful collective front to protect members and to accomplish shared interests. Think about all of the required courses you must take to graduate; the list was probably developed by a coalition of professors led by their department chairs. Faculty members who support a required course from another department expect help from the supported department in getting their course on the list.
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