Power, Leadership, and Organizational Behavior: Key Concepts

Power and Influence in Organizations

Power and influence are two critical aspects of the ways that people in organizations interrelate. Power is relatively simple — it is about how you get what you want. Influence is trickier; it is best understood as the reaction to power.

Issues relating to obedience are central to this discussion. The acceptance of authority is a key concern, and it has been proposed that there are four conditions that must be met in order for authority to be accepted. The text then considers what reactions to orders look like — the different levels at which obedience manifests in the organization. There is a zone of indifference, which refers to those instructions carried out without any critical evaluation on the part of the person doing the job. Sometimes, however, an employee may feel they are getting poor value from their relationship with the organization and may resist certain instructions.

There are many sources of power and influence within organizations. Legitimate power comes from formal authority. Reward power comes from one's ability to reward people for their efforts, and coercive power derives from the ability to punish people for non-compliance. Process power exists when a person has control over the resources and processes of the organization. Sometimes this aligns closely with formal power, but not always — process power and formal power are often separated on job sites where tradespeople hold the process power and the foreman holds the formal authority. In offices, there is usually a closer alignment between these two forms.

Information power is related — the more information one has, the more power one holds. Expert power is similar; people viewed as experts are typically ascribed power even when they have little formal authority. Consider the long-serving veteran employee who may hold a low-ranked post but whom colleagues turn to with questions because that person knows everything about the company. Referent power and coalition power relate to one's ability to leverage interpersonal relationships for influence.

Understanding the different sources of power enables individuals to realize the maximum extent of their power in an organization, rather than simply relying on formal authority. Knowledge of the various ways one can acquire power is politically important, because it helps build the power needed to accomplish one's goals. This is political savvy — knowing how to build power and then utilize it effectively in dealings with others. Influence capacity is the degree of influence one could potentially have; how that potential is used is a matter of choice.

Managers play a key role in organizations. They hold formal power — and often other forms as well — but they can also help others acquire power through the process of empowerment. Empowering people means giving them the power they need to do their jobs and make their own decisions. Since there are many sources of power, including expert and informational, empowerment does not refer only to granting formal authority; it can also mean giving people knowledge and confidence. There are limits to empowerment, however. Empowerment changes the power structure within the organization; power is not necessarily a zero-sum game, but neither is it infinite.

There are two traditions of organizational politics. The first views politics as the management of influence to serve self-interest. The second looks at politics as leveraging the self-interest of individuals within the organization, usually for the organization's broader benefit. In practice, power within organizations tends to be split between formal and informal structures. Under the self-interested view, people use a variety of political tactics to avoid problems, redirect responsibility, and defend turf.

Finally, governance deserves attention. Managers may have self-interests, but they are ultimately supposed to act as agents for shareholders, in the shareholders' interests. Conflicts between these interests arise regularly. At the organizational level, much of how power is structured is determined at the top levels of the hierarchy.