Power and Politics

legitimate power

- Agreement that people in certain roles can request certain behaviors of others - Based on job descriptions and mutual agreement - Legitimate power range (zone of indifference) varies across national and organisational cultures - Norm of reciprocity - Information control

What is influence

- The ability to get others to do what we want - Logic refers to the principles of reasoning, especially regarding the structure of arguments - Logical fallacies refer to common errors in reasoning that undermine the logic of an argument

direction of influence

- Upward influence is the ability to influence those in positions higher than yours. - Downward influence is the ability to influence those in positions lower than yours. - Effective peer influence occurs when individuals are not destructively competitive.

coercive power

- ability to apply punishment; - exists upwards as well as downwards - peer pressure

reward power

- ability to control the allocation of rewards valued by others and to remove negative sanctions; - operates upwards as well as downwards

expert power

- influence others by possessing special skills or knowledge they value; - more employee expert power over companies in knowledge economy - Perceived ability to manage uncertainties the Milgram studies; The Zimbardo study

responses to influence tactics

- resistance: • Occurs then the influence target does not wish to comply with the request and either passively or actively repels the influence attempt. - compliance: • Occurs when the target does not necessarily want to obey, but they do. - commitment • Occurs when the target not only agrees to the request but also actively supports it as well.

What Creates Dependence?

1. Importance 2. Scarcity 3. Nonsubstitutability

Nine influence tactics

1. Rational persuasion 2. Inspirational appeals 3. Consultation 4. Ingratiation 5. Personal appeals 6. Exchange 7. Coalitions 8. Pressure 9. Legitimating

Influence Tactics

> commitment, compliance, resistance: soft influence tactics --- hard influence tactics > upward influence, downward influence, lateral influence: Rational persuasion --- Inspirational appeals, Pressure... --- Personal appeals, Coalitions... Some tactics are more effective than others. · Rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, and consultation are most effective when the audience is highly interested in the outcomes. · Pressure tends to backfire. · Both ingratiation and legitimacy can lessen the negative reactions from appearing to "dictate" outcomes.

Positive and negative consequences of power

Power has both positive and negative consequences: - powerful CEOs can align an entire organization to move together to achieve goals - Autocracy can destroy companies and countries alike Power can be intoxicating and can be devastating when abused Conformity refers to people's tendencies to behave consistently with social norms

impression management

actively shaping the way you are perceived by others: - nonverbal impression management - self-focused impression management - other-focused impression management

the relationship between dependency and power

dependency: the more that a person or unit is dependent on you, the more power you have over them - scarcity - importance - substitutability power may exist but not used

Bases of Power

legitimate, reward, coercive, expert, information, referent

referent power

occurs when others identify with, like or otherwise respect the person

Power

the ability to influence others to get what you want