Power and Politics in Organizations
Introduction
It is without any doubt that power and politics are two twins that are interconnected
together and cannot be separated. Studies and researches have shown that in each
organization, power and politics are available by which politics influences power and
thus power influences the organizational outcome. Power is considerably the right to
form a decision as well as influence staff behaviors to execute a certain task and adapt
these decisions based on the internal organizational relationships.
Leaders and managers work in an organization in order to reach the desired objectives
and goals while having several different alternatives and choices. Any decision that
has to be taken within an organization has to be influenced by power and politics
within an organization. Although it might sound that power and politics might be of a
negative outcome, yet plenty of studies have shown that power and politics might help
an organization during the innovation phase.
Organizations are considered to bodies formed by either people or systems. An
organization is a mixture of both harmonious units as well conflicted ones
(Bacharach and Lawler, 1980). Organizations can be structured to be formed by a sort
of political decisions of groups found either within the organization or outside of it.
These political parties may directly or indirectly influence the power of leaders within
an organization and thus make sure these leader take or make certain decisions that
can be beneficial for the organization. The focal point of this assignment is to
highlight the presence of power and politics within an organization and study heir
nature and the extent to which one affect the other.
Groups and Teams
Groups and teams have been always interconnected. From a psychological point of
view, a group is a number of persons that interact together, psychologically notified
about the presence of others and see themselves are being representatives of a certain
group.
Although many studies consider groups and teams are similar, yet plenty of studies
showed a distinction between both terms (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993). For this topic,
we not in favor of differentiating between the two terms, so it is highly recommended
if we consider that both terms are identical..
“From a psychological perspective, any association of persons, in order to be or to
become a small group, have to satisfy five conditions:
