Chapter 15 – Influence, Empowerment, and Politics
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Influence, Empowerment, and Politics
LEARNING OJBECTIVES
See Slides 15-2, 15-3
When you finish studying the material in this chapter, you should be able to:
• Explain the concept of mutuality of interest.
• Name at least three “soft” and two “hard” influence tactics, and summarize the
practical lessons from influence research.
• Identify and briefly describe French and Raven’s five bases of power, and
discuss the responsible use of power.
• Define the term empowerment, and explain why it is a matter of degree.
• Explain why delegation is the highest form of empowerment, and discuss the
connections among delegation, trust, and personal initiative.
• Define organizational politics, and explain what triggers it.
• Distinguish between favorable and unfavorable impression management tactics.
• Explain how to manage organizational politics.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Chapter 15 discusses social influence and persuasion. Nine generic influence tactics
are explained and the three influence outcomes are discussed. This chapter explores
the topic of social power and the responsible use of power. Further, this chapter
describes employee empowerment, participative management and delegation. Finally,
this chapter discusses organizational politics and impression management.
Mutuality of interest involves balancing individual and organizational interests through
win-win cooperation. The nine generic influence tactics, listed in diminishing order of
use in the workplace, are: rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, consultation,
ingratiating tactics, personal appeals, exchange, coalition tactics, pressure, and
legitimating tactics. Possible outcomes of influence attempts include commitment,
compliance, and resistance. Commitment is the best outcome in the workplace
because the target person’s intrinsic motivation will energize good performance.
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Social power is the ability to get things done using human, information, and material
resources. Power can classified as socialized power (directed at helping others) and
personalized power (directed at helping oneself). French and Raven’s five bases of
power include: reward, coercive, legitimate, expert, and referent. Research suggests
that expert and referent power have a generally positive impact, reward and legitimate
power have a slightly positive impact, and coercive power has a slightly negative impact
on outcomes such as job performance and satisfaction. Expert and referent power
appear to get the best combination of results and favorable reactions from lower-level
employees.
Empowerment involves sharing power with lower-level employees to tap their full
potential. The concept of empowerment requires adjustment in traditional managerial
thinking. Empowerment is a matter of degree, not an either-or proposition. Participative
management (PM) is a process whereby employees play a direct role in (1) setting
goals, (2) making decisions, (3) solving problems, and (4) making changes in the
organization. Advocates of PM claim employee participation increases employee
satisfaction, commitment, and performance but it does not work in all situations. PM is
more effective if employees are not highly interdependent on each other; if there is trust
between management and employees; and if employees are competent, prepared, and
interested in participating. The highest degree of empowerment, delegation, is the
process of granting decision-making authority to subordinates. Delegation is difficult for
managers to do because they must trust their employees. Figure 15-2 represents a
three-step ladder to trust: consultation, participation, and delegation. Personal initiative
fosters managerial trust. Research on empowerment is mixed, with a recent positive
uptrend. Empowerment is easy to understand, but difficult to implement.
Organizational politics is intentional enhancement of self-interest. Political behavior is
activated by uncertainty. Five common sources of uncertainty are: unclear objectives,
vague performance measures, ill-defined decision processes, strong individual or group
competition, or any type of change. Political behavior can occur at the individual,
coalition, or network level. A coalition is an informal group bound together by the active
pursuit of a single issue. When the target issue is resolved, the coalition disbands. In
contrast, networks are loose associations of individuals seeking social support for their
general self-interests. Networks are people oriented, while coalitions are issue oriented.
As described in Table 15-1, researchers have identified eight common political tactics:
attacking or blaming others; using information as a political tool; creating a favorable
image; developing a base of support; praising others; forming power coalitions with
strong allies; associating with influential people; and creating obligations.
Impression management is any attempt to control or manipulate the images related to a
person, organization, or ideas. High self-monitors are more likely to engage in
impression management behaviors. Impression management often strays into
questionable if not unethical territory. Favorable impression management tactics can be
job-focused, supervisor-focused, and self-focused. As unusual as it sounds, there are
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times when people intentionally try to make a bad impression. A bad impression can
help an employee avoid work, obtain concrete rewards, exit the firm, and control others.
Tactics useful in creating an unfavorable impression include decreasing performance,
not working to potential, withdrawing, displaying a bad attitude, and broadcasting
limitations.
Since organizational politics cannot be eliminated, managers need to keep political
maneuvering within reasonable bounds. A moderate amount of prudent political
behavior generally is considered a survival tool in complex organizations and there are
ways to make politics work for you. Table 15-3 provides recommendations for
managing organizational politics. Measurable objectives for personal accountability are
an important defense against negative expressions of organizational politics.
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Introduction
i) In today’s modern organization, there is a constant struggle between
individual and collective interests.
ii) Mutuality of interest: balancing individual and organizational interests
through win-win cooperation. See Slide 15-4
iii) Figure 15-1: The Constant Tug-of-War between Self-Interest and
Mutuality of Interest Requires Managerial Action illustrates the concept of
mutuality of interest. See Slide 15-5
iv) Managers need a complete tool kit of techniques to guide diverse individuals,
who are often powerfully motivated to put their own self-interests first, to
pursue common objectives.
II. Organizational Influence Tactics
i) Nine Generic Influence Tactics See Slide 15-6
(1) Research by David Kipnis identified nine influence tactics, ranked in
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diminishing order of use in the workplace:
(a) Rational persuasion: trying to convince someone with reason, logic,
or facts.
(b) Inspirational appeals: trying to build enthusiasm by appealing to
others’ emotions, ideals, or values.
(c) Consultation: getting others to participate in planning, making
decisions, and changes.
(d) Ingratiation: getting someone in a good mood before making a
request; being friendly, helpful, and using praise, flattery, or humor.
(i) The Real World/Real People: Should You Try to Charm the
Boss? profiles the ingratiation technique.
(e) Personal appeals: referring to friendship and loyalty when making a
request.
(f) Exchange: making express or implied promises and trading favors.
(g) Coalition tactics: getting others to support your effort to persuade
someone.
(h) Pressure: demanding compliance or using intimidation or threats.
(i) Legitimating tactics: basing a request on one’s authority or right,
organizational rules or policies, or express or implied support from
superiors.
(2) Researchers have found this ranking to be fairly consistent regardless of
whether the direction of influence is downward, upward, or lateral.
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(3) Rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, consultation, ingratiation, and
personal appeals are “soft” tactics because they are friendlier and less
coercive than the last four tactics.
(4) Exchange, coalition, pressure, and legitimating tactics are called “hard”
tactics because they involve more overt pressure.
ii) Three Possible Influence Outcomes See Slides 15-8, 15-9
(1) According to researchers, an influence attempt has three possible
outcomes:
(a) Commitment: substantial agreement followed by initiative and
persistence in pursuit of common goals.
(b) Compliance: reluctant or insincere agreement requiring subsequent
prodding to satisfy minimum requirements.
(c) Resistance: stalling, unproductive arguing, or outright rejection.
(2) Commitment is the best outcome in the workplace because the target
person’s intrinsic motivation will energize good performance.
iii) Practical Research Insights See Slide 15–10
(1) Commitment is more likely when people rely on consultation, strong
rational persuasion, and inspirational appeals and do not rely on pressure
and coalition tactics.
(2) Ingratiating tactics can slightly improve performance appraisal results.
(3) Commitment is more likely when the influence attempt involves something
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important and enjoyable, and is based on a friendly relationship.
(4) The quality of the working relationship between a manager and a team
member affected willingness to help teammates.
(5) The “soft” tactics are viewed as fair and the “hard” tactics as unfair.
(6) For both women and men, task behavior was associated with perceived
competence and effective influence in work groups. Dominating behavior
was not effective.
(7) Interpersonal influence is bound by culture.
III. Social Power
i) Social Power Overview
(1) Social power: ability to get things done with human, informational, and
material resources. See Slide 15-11
(2) Power is a necessary and generally positive force in organizations.
(3) Social power in organizations can flow downward, upward and laterally.
ii) Dimensions of Power
(1) Two Types of Power See Slides 15-12, 15-13
(a) Socialized power: directed at helping others.
(b) Personalized power: directed at helping oneself.
(2) Five Bases of Power See Slides 15-14, 15-15, 15–16
(a) Reward Power
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(i) Reward power: obtaining compliance with promised or actual
rewards.
(b) Coercive Power
(i) Coercive power: obtaining compliance through threatened or
actual punishment.
(c) Legitimate Power
(i) Legitimate power: obtaining compliance through formal authority.
(ii) Legitimate power may be expressed either positively or negatively.
(d) Expert Power
(i) Expert power: obtaining compliance through one’s knowledge or
information.
(e) Referent Power
(i) Referent power: obtaining compliance through charisma or
personal attraction.
iii) Research Insights about Social Power See Slide 15-18
(1) Male and female employees had similar needs for power (n Pwr) and
personalized power (p Pwr), but the women had a significantly higher
need for socialized power (s Pwr) than did their male counterparts.
(2) Powerful women were described more positively by women than by men.
(3) Researchers have investigated relationships between power bases and
work outcomes such as job performance, job satisfaction, and turnover.
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(a) Expert and referent power had a generally positive effect.
(b) Reward and legitimate power had a slightly positive effect.
(c) Coercive power had a slightly negative effect.
(4) A study involving 251 employed business seniors focused on employee
perceptions of managerial influence and power.
(a) Rational persuasion was found to be a highly acceptable managerial
influence tactic.
(b) Rational persuasion was associated with the three bases of power that
are viewed positively: legitimate, expert, and referent.
iv) Using Power Responsibly and Ethically
(1) Managers should strive for socialized power while avoiding personalized
power.
(2) Reward, coercive, and negative legitimate power tend to produce
compliance. Compliant employees require frequent re-administrations of
power to remain motivated.
(3) Positive legitimate, expert and referent power foster commitment.
Committed employees tend to be self-starters who do not require close
supervision.
(4) The Real World/Real People: A Heavy Hand at Johnson & Johnson
profiles an abuse of power.
IV. Empowerment: From Power Sharing to Power Distribution
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i) Empowerment Overview
(1) Empowerment: sharing varying degrees of power with lower-level
employees to tap their full potential. See Slide 15-19
(2) A core component of the empowerment process is pushing decision-
making authority down to progressively lower levels.
ii) A Matter of Degree
(1) The concept of empowerment requires adjustment in traditional
managerial thinking.
(a) Power is not a zero-sum situation where one person’s gain is another’s
loss because social power is unlimited.
(b) Empowerment should be viewed as a matter of degree not as an
either–or proposition.
(2) Figure 15-2: The Evolution of Power: From Domination to Delegation
illustrates how power can be shifted to the hands of nonmanagers step by
step. See Slide 15–20
(3) The overriding goal of empowerment is to increase productivity and
competitiveness in leaner organizations.
iii) Participative Management
(1) Participative management (PM): the process whereby employees play a
direct role in (1) setting goals, (2) making decisions, (3) solving problems,
and (4) making changes in the organization. See Slide 15-21
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(2) Advocates of PM claim employee participation increases employee
satisfaction, commitment, and performance.
(3) Participative management is predicted to increase motivation because it
helps employees fulfill three basic needs: autonomy, meaningfulness of
work, and interpersonal contact. See Slide 15-22
(4) Satisfaction of these needs enhances feelings of acceptance and
commitment, security, challenge and satisfaction.
(5) Participative management does not work in all situations.
(6) Three factors influence the effectiveness of PM:
(a) The design of work: individual participation is counterproductive when
employees are highly interdependent on each other.
(b) The level of trust between management and employees: PM is less
likely to succeed when employees do not trust management.
(c) The employees’ competence and readiness to participate: PM is more
effective when employees are competent, prepared, and interested in
participating.
iv) Delegation
(1) Delegation Overview
(a) The highest degree of empowerment is delegation.
(b) Delegation: granting decision-making authority to people at lower
levels. See Slide 15–24
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(2) Barriers to Delegation See Slide 15–25
(a) The belief that “if you want it done right, do it yourself.”
(b) Lack of confidence and trust in lower-level employees.
(c) Low self-confidence.
(d) Fear of being called lazy.
(e) Vague job definition.
(f) Fear of competition from those below.
(g) Reluctance to take the risks involved in depending on others
(h) Lack of controls that provide early warning of problems with delegated
duties.
(i) Poor example set by bosses.
(3) Delegation Research and Implications for Trust and Personal
Initiative
(a) According to research, greater delegation was associated with:
(i) Employee was competent.
(ii) Employee shared manager’s task objectives.
(iii)Managers had a long-standing and positive relationship with
employee.
(iv)The lower-level person also was a supervisor.
(b) Managers prefer to delegate important tasks and decisions to the
people they trust.
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(c) Figure 15-2 presents the three-step ladder to trust in the empowerment
evolution: consultation, participation, and delegation.
(d) Managers need to start small and work up the empowerment ladder as
competence, confidence, and trust grow.
(e) Employees can earn a manager’s trust by showing initiative.
(f) Personal initiative: going beyond formal job requirements and being
an active self-starter. See Slide 15–27
(g) Figure 15-3 Personal Initiative: The Other Side of Delegation
presents a hierarchy of initiative. See Slide 15–26
v) Empowerment: The Research Record and Practical Advice
(1) Research results on empowerment are mixed, but there is a recent
positive uptrend.
(2) The Real World/Real People: Participation and Empowerment at the
New York Philharmonic illustrates that empowerment has good promise
if managers go about it properly.
(3) Managers committed to the idea of employee empowerment need to
follow the path of continuous improvement, learning from their successes
and failures.
(4) Figure 15-4: Randolph’s Empowerment Model presents a three-
pronged empowerment plan. See Slide 15–28
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(5) Empowerment is easy to understand, but hard to implement. Completing
the empowerment process takes perseverance.
V. Organizational Politics and Impression Management
i) Organizational Politics and Impression Management Overview
(1) Organizational politics is an ever-present and sometimes annoying feature
of modern work life.
(2) Skillful and well-timed politics can help you get your point across,
neutralize resistance to a key project, land a choice job assignment, or
simply get the job done.
(3) In her book Secrets to Winning at Office Politics, Marie G McIntyre lists
the Four P’s of political success: See Slides 15-29, 5-30
(a) Power assessment: how can you improve your leverage position?
(b) Performance: how can your work make the business more
successful?
(c) Perception: how can you enhance your reputation, especially with
those who can achieve your goals?
(d) Partnerships: how can you increase your network of allies and
supporters?
ii) Definition and Domain of Organizational Politics
(1) Organizational Politics Overview
(a) Organizational politics: intentional enhancement of self-interest.
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See Slide 15-231
(b) This form of social influence is distinguished by its emphasis on self–
interest.
(c) Managers are endlessly challenged to achieve a workable balance
between employees’ self-interests and organizational interests.
(2) Uncertainty Triggers Political Behavior
(a) Political maneuvering is triggered primarily by uncertainty and
common sources of uncertainty include: See Slide 15–32
(i) Unclear objectives.
(ii) Vague performance measures.
(iii) Ill-defined decision processes.
(iv) Strong individual or group competition.
(v) Any type of change.
(3) Three Levels of Political Actions
(a) Political action can occur on the individual, coalition and network
levels.
(b) Figure 15-5: Levels of Political Action in Organizations identifies
the distinguishing characteristics of the 3 levels of political action.
See Slide 15–33
(c) Coalition: an informal group bound together by the active pursuit of a
single issue. See Slide 15–34