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Chapter 13 Power and Politics Page
Chapter 13
Power and Politics
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, students should be able to:
13-1. Contrast leadership and power.
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?
MyLab Management
oPersonal Inventory Assessments: Gaining Power and Influence
oWatch It!: Power and Political Behavior
oTry It!: Power and Politics
Point/Counterpoint: Everyone Wants Power
Questions for Review
Experiential Exercise: Comparing Influence Tactics
Ethical Dilemma: Sexual Harassment and Office Romances
Text Cases
Case Incident 1: Should Women Have More Power?
Case Incident 2: Where Flattery Will Get You?
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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
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.
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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 the short tenure of Park Guen-bye as president of South Korea. In
this chapter, we will learn about power, from what causes a person to have power, to the tactics employees
use to exert their will over others. We will also learn the role of political behavior in maintain power within
an organization. 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
through legitimate power.
B. Personal Power
1. Expert power
knowledge.
2. Referent power
resources or personal traits.
C. Which Bases of Power Are Most Effective?
1. Personal sources are most effective.
these outcomes.
3. Coercive power usually backfires.
III. Dependence: The Key to Power
A. The General Dependency Postulate
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supply.
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
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
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
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)
acquire from different groups.
6. In other words, many people are dependent upon brokers, which gives the
brokers more power.
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7. There are many ways to implement a social network analysis in an
organization.
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
with organizational policies or rules.
2. Rational persuasion. Presenting logical arguments and factual evidence to
demonstrate a request is reasonable.
deciding how you will accomplish your plan.
5. Exchange. Rewarding the target with benefits or favors in exchange for
following a request.
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
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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.
a. The politically skilled are more effective users of all the influence tactics,
leading to many positive outcomes in the workplace.
b. People who are politically skilled have higher self-efficacy, job
satisfaction, work productivity, and career success. They are less likely to
be victims of workplace aggression.
c. Political skill is also more effective when the stakes are high, such as
when the individual is accountable for important organizational outcomes.
d. Finally, the politically skilled are able to exert their influence without
others detecting it, a key element in effectiveness (it’s damaging to be
labeled political).
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
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.
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
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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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
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confidential information, etc.
B. The Reality of Politics
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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
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).
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.
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interviewer is looking for.
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.
(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
people around them (a holistic approach).
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