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Chapter 13
Power and Politics
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, students should be able to:
13-1. Contrast leadership and power.
13-2. Explain the three bases of formal power and the two bases of personal power.
13-3. Explain the role of dependence in power relationships.
13-4. Identify power or influence tactics and their contingencies.
13-5. Identify the causes and consequences of abuse of power.
13-6. Describe how politics work in organizations.
13-7. Identify the causes, consequences, and ethics of political behavior.
INSTRUCTOR’S RESOURCES
Instructors may wish to use the following resources when presenting this chapter.
Text Exercises
Career OBjectives: Should I Become Political?
Myth or Science?: “Powerful Leaders Keep Their (Fr)Enemies Close”
An Ethical Choice: How Much Should You Manage Interviewer Impressions?
Personal Inventory Assessments: Gaining Power and Influence
Point/Counterpoint: Everyone Wants Power
Questions for Review
Experiential Exercise: Comparing Influence Tactics
Ethical Dilemma: How Much Should You Defer to Those in Power?
Text Cases
Case Incident 1: The Powerful Take All
Case Incident 2: Barry’s Peer Becomes His Boss
Instructor’s Choice
This section presents an exercise that is NOT found in the student's textbook. Instructor's Choice
reinforces the text's emphasis through various activities. Some Instructor's Choice activities are
centered on debates, group exercises, Internet research, and student experiences. Some can be
used in class in their entirety, while others require some additional work on the student's part.
The course instructor may choose to use these at any time throughout the class—some may be
more effective as icebreakers, while some may be used to pull together various concepts covered
in the chapter.
Web Exercises
At the end of each chapter of this Instructor’s Manual, you will find suggested exercises and
ideas for researching OB topics on the Internet. The exercises “Exploring OB Topics on the
Web” are set up so that you can simply photocopy the pages, distribute them to your class, and
make assignments accordingly. You may want to assign the exercises as an out-of-class activity
or as lab activities with your class.
Summary and Implications for Managers
Few employees relish being powerless in their job and organization. People respond differently
to the various power bases. Expert and referent power are derived from an individual’s personal
qualities. In contrast, coercion, reward, and legitimate power are essentially organizationally
derived. Competence especially appears to offer wide appeal, and its use as a power base results
in high performance by group members. An effective manager accepts the political nature of
organizations. Some people are significantly more politically astute than others, meaning that
they are aware of the underlying politics and can manage impressions. Those who are good at
playing politics can be expected to get higher performance evaluations and, hence, larger salary
increases and more promotions than the politically naïve or inept. The politically astute are also
likely to exhibit higher job satisfaction and be better able to neutralize job stressors. Specific
implications for managers are below:
To maximize your power, you will want to increase others’ dependence on you. For
instance, increase your power in relation to your boss by developing knowledge or a skill
she needs and for which she perceives no ready substitute.
You will not be alone in attempting to build your power bases. Others, particularly
employees and peers, will be seeking to increase your dependence on them, while you are
trying to minimize it and increase their dependence on you.
Try to avoid putting others in a position where they feel they have no power.
By assessing behavior in a political framework, you can better predict the actions of
others and use that information to formulate political strategies that will gain advantages
for you and your work unit.
Consider that employees who have poor political skills or are unwilling to play the
politics game generally relate perceived organizational politics to lower job satisfaction
and self-reported performance, increased anxiety, and higher turnover. Therefore, if you
are adept at organizational politics, help your employees understand the importance of
becoming politically savvy.
This chapter begins with a discussion of power in college sports. As we can see in the opening story, politics can
wreak havoc on an essentially good system—in this case, ensuring student athletes get a high-quality education. In
both practice and research, power and politics have been described as dirty words. In fact, it is easier for most of us
to talk about sex or money than about power or political behavior. People who have power deny it, people who want
it try not to look like they’re seeking it, and those who are good at getting it are secretive about how they do so. In
this chapter, we show that power determines what goals people pursue, discuss how power works in organizations,
and reveal the effects of political behavior. We begin by exploring our natural association of power with leadership.
BRIEF CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Power and Leadership
A. Power refers to a capacity that A has to influence the behavior of B, so that B acts in
accordance with A’s wishes.
B. Power may exist but not be used. It is, therefore, a capacity or potential.
C. Probably the most important aspect of power is that it is a function of dependence.
D. A person can have power over you only if he or she controls something you desire.
E. Leaders use power as a means of attaining group goals.
F. Differences Between Leadership and Power:
1. Goal compatibility
2. The direction of influence
II. Bases of Power
A. Formal Power
1. Coercive power
a. The coercive power base depends on fear of negative results.
2. Reward power
a. The opposite of coercive power is reward power.
3. Legitimate power
a. In formal groups and organizations, the most common access power is through
legitimate power.
B. Personal Power
1. Expert power
a. Expert power is influence wielded as a result of expertise, special skill, or
knowledge.
2. Referent power
a. Referent power is based on identification with a person who has desirable
resources or personal traits.
C. Which Bases of Power Are Most Effective?
1. Personal sources are most effective.
2. Both expert and referent power are positively related to employees’ satisfaction with
supervision, their organizational commitment, and their performance, whereas reward
and legitimate power seem to be unrelated to these outcomes.
3. Coercive power usually backfires.
III. Dependence: The Key to Power
A. The General Dependency Postulate
1. The greater B’s dependency on A, the greater the power A has over B.
2. When you possess anything that others require but that you alone control, you make
them dependent upon you and, therefore, you gain power over them.
3. Dependence, then, is inversely proportional to the alternative sources of supply.
4. This is why most organizations develop multiple suppliers rather than using just one.
5. It also explains why so many of us aspire to financial independence.
B. What Creates Dependence?
1. Importance
a. To create dependency, the thing(s) you control must be perceived as being
important.
2. Scarcity
a. A resource needs to be perceived as scarce to create dependency.
b. The scarcity-dependency relationship can further be seen in the power of
occupational categories.
i. Individuals in occupations in which the supply of personnel is low relative to
demand can negotiate compensation and benefit packages, which are far more
attractive than can those in occupations where there is an abundance of
candidates.
3. Nonsubstitutability
a. The more that a resource has no viable substitutes, the more power that control
over that resource provides.
C. Social Network Analysis: A Tool for Assessing Resources
1. One tool to assess the exchange of resources and dependencies within an organization
is social network analysis.
2. This method examines patterns of communication among organizational members to
identify how information flows between them.
3. Within a social network, or connections between people who share professional
interests, each individual or group is called a node, and the links between nodes are
called ties. When nodes communicate or exchange resources frequently, they are said
to have very strong ties.
a. A graphical illustration of the associations among individuals in a social network
is called a sociogram and functions like an informal version of an organization
chart. The difference is that a formal organization chart shows how authority is
supposed to flow, whereas a sociogram shows how resources really flow in an
organization. (Exhibit 13-1)
4. Networks can create substantial power dynamics. Those in the position of brokers
tend to have more power because they can leverage the unique resources they can
acquire from different groups.
5. In other words, many people are dependent upon brokers, which gives the brokers
more power.
6. There are many ways to implement a social network analysis in an organization.
a. Some organizations keep track of the flow of e-mail communications or document
sharing across departments.
b. Other organizations look at data from human resources information systems,
analyzing how supervisors and subordinates interact with one another.
IV. Power Tactics
A. What power tactics do people use to translate power bases into specific action?
B. Research has identified nine distinct influence tactics.
1. Legitimacy. Relying on your authority position or saying a request accords with
organizational policies or rules.
2. Rational persuasion. Presenting logical arguments and factual evidence to
demonstrate a request is reasonable.
3. Inspirational appeals. Developing emotional commitment by appealing to a target’s
values, needs, hopes, and aspirations.
4. Consultation. Increasing the target’s support by involving him or her in deciding
how you will accomplish your plan.
5. Exchange. Rewarding the target with benefits or favors in exchange for following a
request.
6. Personal appeals. Asking for compliance based on friendship or loyalty.
7. Ingratiation. Using flattery, praise, or friendly behavior prior to making a request.
8. Pressure. Using warnings, repeated demands, and threats.
9. Coalitions. Enlisting the aid or support of others to persuade the target to agree.
C. Using Power Tactics
1. Some tactics are more effective than others.
a. Rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, and consultation tend to be the most
effective, especially when the audience is highly interested in the outcomes of a
decision process.
2. The effectiveness of some influence tactics depends on the direction of influence.
a. As Exhibit 13-2 shows, rational persuasion is the only tactic effective across
organizational levels. Inspirational appeals work best as a downward influencing
tactic with subordinates.
b. When pressure works, it’s generally downward only. Personal appeals and
coalitions are most effective as lateral influence.
c. Interestingly, a single soft tactic is more effective than a single hard tactic, and
combining two soft tactics or a soft tactic and rational persuasion is more effective
than any single tactic or combination of hard tactics.
d. The effectiveness of tactics depends on the audience.
D. Cultural Preferences for Power Tactics
1. People in different countries prefer different power tactics.
a. Those from individualist countries tend to see power in personalized terms and as
a legitimate means of advancing their personal ends, whereas those in collectivist
countries see power in social terms and as a legitimate means of helping others.
E. Applying Power Tactics
1. People differ in their political skill, or their ability to influence others to enhance
their own objectives.
2. Finally, we know cultures within organizations differ markedly—some are warm,
relaxed, and supportive; others are formal and conservative.
3. Some cultures encourage participation and consultation, some encourage reason, and
still others rely on pressure.
a. People who fit the culture of the organization tend to obtain more influence.
V. How Power Affects People
A. Does power corrupt?
1. Evidence suggests that power leads people to place their own interests ahead of
others.
2. Powerful people react—especially negatively—to any threats to their competence.
a. Power also leads to overconfident decision making.
B. Power Variables
1. Power doesn’t affect everyone in the same way, and there are even positive effects of
power. Let’s consider each of these in turn.
a. First, the toxic effects of power depend on one’s personality.
i. Research suggests that if we have an anxious personality, power does not
corrupt us because we are less likely to think that using power benefits us.
b. Second, the corrosive effect of power can be contained by organizational systems.
i. One study found, for example, that while power made people behave in a
self-serving manner, when accountability of this behavior was initiated, the
self-serving behavior stopped.
c. Third, forgive the pun, but we have the power to blunt the negative effects of
power.
i. One study showed that simply expressing gratitude toward powerful others
made them less likely to aggress against us.
d. Finally, remember the aphorism that those with little power grab and abuse what
little they have? There appears to be some truth to this in that the people most
likely to abuse power are those who are low in status and gain power. Why is this
the case? It appears that having low status is threatening, and this fear is used in
negative ways if power is given.
e. As you can see, there are factors that can ameliorate the negative effects of power.
f. But there also appear to be general positive effects.
i. Power energizes and leads to approach motivation.
ii. It also can enhance people’s motivation to help others, at least for certain
people.
g. It is not so much that power corrupts as it reveals what we value.
i. For those with strong moral identities, power actually enhanced their moral
awareness.
VI. Sexual Harassment: Unequal Power in the Workplace
A. Sexual harassment is defined as any unwanted activity of a sexual nature that affects an
individual’s employment and creates a hostile work environment.
1. Organizations have generally made progress in the past decade toward limiting overt
forms of sexual harassment.
2. Generally, sexual harassment is more prevalent in male-dominated societies.
3. Most studies confirm that the concept of power is central to understanding sexual
harassment.
4. The following are some ways managers can protect themselves and their employees
from sexual harassment:
a. Make sure an active policy defines what constitutes sexual harassment, informs
employees they can be fired for sexually harassing another employee, and
establishes procedures for how complaints can be made.
b. Reassure employees that they will not encounter retaliation if they issue a
complaint.
c. Investigate every complaint and include the legal and human resource
departments.
d. Make sure offenders are disciplined or terminated.
e. Set up in-house seminars to raise employee awareness of the issues surrounding
sexual harassment.
5. The bottom line is that managers have a responsibility to protect their employees
from a hostile work environment, but they also need to protect themselves.
VII. Politics: Power in Action
A. Definition of Organizational Politics
1. Political behavior refers to those activities that are not required as part of one’s
formal role in the organization, but that influence, or attempt to influence, the
distribution of advantages and disadvantages within the organization.
a. Political behavior is outside one’s specified job requirements.
b. It encompasses efforts to influence the goals, criteria, or processes used for
decision making.
c. It includes such varied political behaviors as withholding key information from
decision makers, whistle blowing, spreading rumors, leaking confidential
information, etc.
B. The Reality of Politics
1. Interviews with experienced managers show that most believe political behavior is a
major part of organizational life.
2. Politics is a fact of life in organizations.
C. The most important factor leading to politics within organizations is the realization that
most of the “facts” that are used to allocate the limited resources are open to
interpretation.
D. Most managerial decisions take place in the large and ambiguous middle ground of
organizational life.
E. Because most decisions have to be made in a climate of ambiguity, people within
organizations will use whatever influence they can to taint the facts to support their goals
and interests.
VIII. Causes and Consequences of Political Behavior
A. Factors Contributing to Political Behavior (Exhibit 13-3)
1. Individual factors
a. Researchers have identified certain personality traits, needs, and other factors that
are likely to be related to political behavior.
b. Employees who are high self-monitors, possess an internal locus of control, and
have a high need for power are more likely to engage in political behavior.
c. The high self-monitor is more sensitive to social cues and is more likely to be
skilled in political behavior than the low self-monitor.
d. An individual’s investment in the organization, perceived alternatives, and
expectations of success will influence the tendency to pursue illegitimate means
of political action.
B. Organizational Factors
a. Political activity is probably more a function of the organization’s characteristics
than of individual difference variables.
b. When an organization’s resources are declining, when the existing pattern of
resources is changing, and when there is opportunity for promotions, politics is
more likely to surface.
c. Cultures characterized by low trust, role ambiguity, unclear performance
evaluation systems, zero-sum reward allocation practices, democratic decision
making, high pressures for performance, and self-serving senior managers will
create breeding grounds for politicking.
d. When organizations downsize to improve efficiency, people may engage in
political actions to safeguard what they have.
e. Promotion decisions have consistently been found to be one of the most political
in organizations.
f. The less trust there is within the organization, the higher the level of political
behavior and the more likely it will be illegitimate.
g. Role ambiguity means that the prescribed behaviors of the employee are not clear.
h. The zero-sum approach treats the reward “pie” as fixed so that any gain one
person or group achieves has to come at the expense of another person or group.
C. How Do People Respond to Organizational Politics?
1. For most people—who have modest political skills or are unwilling to play the
politics game—outcomes tend to be predominantly negative.
a. Exhibit 13-4 summarizes the extensive research on the relationship between
organizational politics and individual outcomes.
2. There is very strong evidence indicating that perceptions of organizational politics are
negatively related to job satisfaction.
3. The perception of politics leads to anxiety or stress. When it gets to be too much to
handle, employees quit.
4. When employees of two agencies in a recent study in Nigeria viewed their work
environments as political, they reported higher levels of job distress and were less
likely to help their coworkers.
5. Researchers have also noted several interesting qualifiers.
a. The politics–performance relationship appears to be moderated by an individual’s
understanding of the “hows” and “whys” of organizational politics.
b. Political behavior at work moderates the effects of ethical leadership.
c. When employees see politics as a threat, they often respond with defensive
behaviors—reactive and protective behaviors to avoid action, blame, or change.
(Exhibit 13-5)
D. Impression Management
1. We know that people have an ongoing interest in how others perceive and evaluate
them.
2. Being perceived positively by others should have benefits for people in organizations.
3. The process by which individuals attempt to control the impression others form of
them is called impression management (IM).
4. Who engages in IM—the high self-monitor. (Exhibit 13-6)
5. IM does not imply that the impressions people convey are necessarily false.
6. Excuses and acclaiming, for instance, may be offered with sincerity.
7. You can actually believe that ads contribute little to sales in your region or that you
are the key to the tripling of your division’s sales. (Exhibit 13-6)
8. Misrepresentation can have a high cost. If the image claimed is false, you may be
discredited.
9. Most of the studies undertaken to test the effectiveness of IM techniques have related
it to two criteria: interview success and performance evaluations.
10. Let’s consider each of these.
a. The evidence indicates most job applicants use IM techniques in interviews and
that it works.
b. In terms of performance ratings, the picture is quite different. Ingratiation is
positively related to performance ratings, meaning those who ingratiate with their
supervisors get higher performance evaluations.
c. Ingratiating always works because everyone—both interviewers and supervisors
—likes to be treated nicely.
d. However, self-promotion may work only in interviews and backfire on the job
because, whereas the interviewer has little idea whether you’re blowing smoke
about your accomplishments, the supervisor knows because it’s his or her job to
observe you.
e. Thus, if you’re going to self-promote, remember that what works in an interview
won’t always work once you’re on the job.
11. Almost all our conclusions on employee reactions to organizational politics are based
on studies conducted in North America. The few studies that have included other
countries suggest some minor modifications.
a. One study of managers in U.S. culture and three Chinese cultures (People’s
Republic of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) found U.S. managers evaluated
“gentle persuasion” tactics such as consultation and inspirational appeal as more
effective than did their Chinese counterparts.
b. Other research suggests that effective U.S. leaders achieve influence by focusing
on personal goals of group members and the tasks at hand (an analytical
approach), whereas influential East Asian leaders focus on relationships among
group members and meeting the demands of the people around them (a holistic
approach).
IX. The Ethics of Behaving Politically
A. Although there are no clear-cut ways to differentiate ethical from unethical politicking,
there are some questions you should consider.
1. For example, what is the utility of engaging in politicking?
a. Sometimes we engage in political behavior for little good reason. Major league
baseball player Al Martin claimed he played football at USC when in fact he
never did.
b. As a baseball player, he had little to gain by pretending to have played football.
c. Outright lies like this may be a rather extreme example of impression
management, but many of us have distorted information to make a favorable
impression.
B. One thing to keep in mind is whether it’s really worth the risk. Another question to ask is
this:
1. How does the utility of engaging in the political behavior balance out any harm (or
potential harm) it will do to others?
C. Finally, does the political activity conform to standards of equity and justice?
1. Sometimes it is difficult to weigh the costs and benefits of a political action, but its
ethicality is clear.
a. The department head who inflates the performance evaluation of a favored
employee and deflates the evaluation of a disfavored employee—and then uses
these evaluations to justify giving the former a big raise and nothing to the latter
—has treated the disfavored employee unfairly.
b. Unfortunately, powerful people can become very good at explaining self-serving
behaviors in terms of the organization’s best interests.
D. When faced with an ethical dilemma regarding organizational politics, try to consider
whether playing politics is worth the risk and whether others might be harmed in the
process.
E. If you have a strong power base, recognize the ability of power to corrupt.
X. Mapping Your Political Career
A. One of the most useful ways to think about power and politics is in terms of your own
career.
B. Think about your career in your organization of choice. What are your ambitions? Who
has the power to help you get there? What is your relationship with these people?
C. The best way to answer these questions is with a political map, which can help you
sketch out your relationships with the people upon whom your career depends.
D. Power and politics are a part of organizational life.
