Leadership - Chap 7 - Dubrin

Unethical Political Tactics and Strategies

1. Backstabbing 2. embrace or demolish 3. Setting a Person Up for Failure 4. Divide and Rule 5. Playing territorial ganes 6. Creating and Then Resolving a False Catastrophe 7. Abusing Power

Control over dysfunctional politics

1. Open communication 2. Avoiding favoritism and cronyism 3. Setting good examples at the top of the organization 4. Individuals and the organization to share the same goals 5. Threat to discuss questionable information in a public forum 6. Hiring people with integrity

List of empowering practices

1.- Foster Initiative and Responsibility 2.- Link Work Activities to Organizational Goals 3.- Provide Ample Information 4.- Allow Group Members to Choose Methods 5.- Encourage Self-Leadership 6.- Establish limits to empowerment 7.- Continue to lead 8.- Take into account cultural differences 9.- Take into Account Empowerment Expectations

3 Bases of Power

1.- Legitimate Power 2.- Reward Power 3.- Coercive Power

Techniques to gain power Develop positive psychological capital

A comprehensive strategy for both gaining power, as well as building relationships, is to develop positive psychological capital. The term refers to an individual's positive psychological state of development, characterized by four psychological resources: self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience.

Techniques to gain power: Make a quick showing

A display of dramatic results can help gain acceptance for one's efforts or those of the group. Once a person has impressed management with his or her ability to solve that first problem, that person can look forward to working on problems that will bring greater power.

Foster Initiative and Responsibility

A leader can empower team members simply by fostering greater initiative and responsibility in their assignments.

Tactics for Becoming an Empowering Leader

A leader's power and influence increase when he or she shares power with others. A truly powerful leader empowers team members to accomplish tasks on their own. Strategy theorist Gary Hamel believes that companies that empower and train people at all levels to lead can create competitive advantage. The inference is that talent from all levels should capitalized upon, not just the talents of those at the top of the organizational pyramid.

Pyramid-Shaped Organization Structure

A pyramid concentrates power at the top. Only so much power is therefore available to distribute among the many people who would like more of it. Each successive layer on the organization chart wields less power than the layer above.

Strategies: Avoiding political blunders

A strategy for retaining power is to refrain from making power-eroding blunders. Committing these politically insensitive acts can also prevent one from attaining power. Several leading blunders are described next: 1. Criticizing the boss in a public forum 2. Bypassing the boss 3. Declining an offer from top management 4. Putting your foot in your mouth 5. Not conforming to the company dress code

Power Stemming from Dependencies

According to the dependence perspective, people accrue power when others are dependent on them for things of value. Because the things valued could be physical resources or a personal relationship, dependence power can be positional or personal. Should leaders lose some of their power to control resources, their power declines. For example, a real estate developer can lose power when several major properties lose money, or worse enter bankruptcy.

Take into account cultural differences

All empowering practices can be influenced by cross-cultural factors. A group member's cultural values might lead to either an easy acceptance of empowerment or reluctance to be empowered. Americans are stereotyped as individualists. Nevertheless, they are so accustomed to working in teams (sports included) that being part of an empowered team would seem natural.

Strategies: Gaining power

All political tactics are aimed at acquiring and maintaining power, even the power to avoid a difficult assignment. Techniques to gain power: 1. Develop power contacts 2. Have a compelling vision 3. Control vital information 4. Do what the political environment demands 5. Make a quick showing 6. Remember that everyone expects to be paid back 7. Be politically correct 8. Be the first to accept reasonable changes 9. Develop positive psychological capital

Continue to lead

Although leaders empower group members, they should still provide guidance, emotional support, and recognition. In other words, if I empower you, I don't have to guide you. People need guidance. Leadership cannot abdicate the role of providing guidance."Because employees are empowered does not mean that they should be abandoned.

strategic contingency theory

An explanation of sources of power suggesting that units best able to cope with the firm's critical problems and uncertainties acquire relatively large amounts of power.

Power and Self-Serving Behavior

An obvious problem about leadership power is that it can be directed more toward self-serving behavior than the good of others including the organization and all stakeholders

How is legitimate power strengthened?

At the top of the organization, a leader's legitimate power is strengthened when he or she carries the titles of both chief executive officer and chairman or chairwoman. Executives who occupy the dual role show a unity of command and strong leadership to stakeholders.

Example of Coercive Power

At their worst, leaders who rely heavily on coercive power are considered to be power mongers in the sense that they will go to extremes to gain and retain power. An example would be firing a capable subordinate because the person might be regarded by influential people as a possible replacement for the executive.

Exercising Control over Dysfunctional Politics

Carried to excess, organizational politics can hurt an organization and its members. Too much politicking can result in wasted time and effort, thereby lowering productivity. The major outcomes related to the perception of politics were as follows: 1. more strain, or adverse effects of stress, 2. more intentions to quit, 3. less job satisfaction, 4. less emotional commitment to the employer, 5. lower task performance, and 6. less organizational citizenship behavior.

Coercive Power

Coercive power is the power to punish for noncompliance; it is based on fear. A common coercive tactic is for an executive to demote a subordinate manager who does not comply with the executive's plans for change. Coercive power is limited, in that punishment and fear achieve mixed results as motivators.

Delegation and Empowerment

Delegation The assignment of formal authority and responsibility for accomplishing a specific task to another person. Without delegation, effective leadership and management cannot take place. Delegation becomes more important as more tasks need to be done, and those tasks are complex. To lead is to inspire and persuade others to accomplish tasks, not to accomplish everything by working alone.

Nature of Empowerment

Empowerment refers to passing decision-making authority and responsibility from managers to group members. Almost any form of participative management, shared decision making, and delegation can be regarded as empowerment.

Link Work Activities to Organizational Goals

Empowerment works better when the empowered activities are aligned with the strategic goals of the organization. Empowered workers who have responsibility to carry out activities that support the major goals of the organization will identify more with the company. At the same time, they will develop a feeling of being a partner in the business.

Encourage Self-Leadership

Encouraging team members to lead themselves is the heart of empowerment. The basic idea of self-leadership is that all organizational members are capable of leading themselves at least to some extent. Complete self-leadership would involve workers deciding what should be done, why it should be done, and how to accomplish the task.

Expert Power and Referent Power

Expert power and referent power contribute to charisma.

Provide Ample Information

For empowerment to be effective, employees should have ample information about everything that affects their work. Especially important is for workers to fully understand the impact of their actions on the company's costs and profits. Armed with such information, employees are more likely to make decisions that have a positive influence on the bottom line.

It pays to be where the action is

For example, the best opportunities in a diversified company lie in one of its growth divisions. Also, many small recycling firms moved from junkyard status to ecology firms as the interest in environmental sustainability surged in the late 2000s.

IMpact

Impact is the degree to which the worker can influence strategic, administrative, or operating outcomes on the job. Instead of feeling there is no choice but to follow the company's course, a worker might have a say in the future of the company.

Internal Commitment toward work goals

Internal commitment takes place when workers are committed to a particular project, person, or program for individual motives. An example would be a production technician in a lawn mower plant who believes he or she is helping create a more beautiful world

Establish limits to empowerment

Limits to empowerment might mean explaining to employees that they have more authority than before, but still they cannot engage in such activities as the following: -Set their own wages and those of top management -Make downsizing decisions -Hire mostly friends and relatives -Work fewer than forty hours for full pay -Voicing their discontent about the company and its leadership on social media

Encouraging Admiration from Subordinates

Managers, as well as other workers, send out subtle signals that they want to be praised, such as smiling after receiving a compliment and frowning when receiving negative feedback. Also, admirers are more likely to receive good assignments and high performance evaluations.

How to obtain power?

Organizational power can be derived from many sources. How people obtain power depends to a large extent on the type of power they seek. Therefore, to understand the mechanics of acquiring power, one must also understand what types of power exist and the sources and origins of these types of power.

Performance of a firm

Performance of the firm was measured by top team managers rating the organization's performance in comparison to the competition.

Leader political support

Political acts and influence behaviors performed by leaders to provide followers with valuable resources to advance individual, group, or organizational objectives.

Power Derived from Capitalizing on Opportunity

Power can be derived from being in the right place at the right time and taking the appropriate action. It pays to be where the action is.

Referent Power

Referent power is the ability to influence others through one's desirable traits and characteristics.

Organizational Politics

Refers to informal approaches to gaining power through means other than merit or luck. Politics are played to achieve power, either directly or indirectly. For example, a person seeking to enhance his or her legitimate power might use a variety of tactics to be favorably perceived by top-level decision makers in the company.

Self-determination

Self-determination is an individual's sense of having a choice in initiating and regulating actions. A high-level form of self-determination occurs when workers feel that they can choose the best method to solve a particular problem. A highly empowered worker might choose to perform the required work while on a cruise rather than remain in the office.

Self-Serving Behavior STUDY

Self-serving behavior in the study focused on the distribution of resources, such as the leader receiving a disproportional share of cash bonuses. The major finding of the study was that powerful leaders who were held accountable, acted less self-servingly than their non-accountable counterparts.

Machiavellian Tendencies

Some people engage in political behavior because they want to manipulate others, sometimes for their own personal advantage.

Emotional Insecurity

Some people resort to political maneuvers to ingratiate themselves with superiors because they lack confidence in their own talents and skills.

Take into Account Empowerment Expectations

Some workers, for example, just want to work within their job description without being burdened with extra responsibility. One study result was that workers experienced more role ambiguity (confusion about what was expected of them) when supervisors over-estimated how much empowerment they wanted.

Team Potency

Team potency refers to the group's shared perception of its ability to successfully perform challenges and tasks.

Reward Power

The authority to give employees rewards for compliance is reward power. If a vice president of operations can directly reward supervisors with cash bonuses for achieving productivity targets, this manager will exert considerable power.

Power Stemming from Being Close to Power

The closer a person is to power, the greater the power he or she exerts. Likewise, the higher a unit reports in a firm's hierarchy, the more power it possesses. In practice, this means that a leader in charge of a department reporting to the CEO has more power than one in charge of a department reporting to a vice president.

Moral Identity Study

The influential (or moderating) variable studied was moral identity—the extent to which an individual holds morality as part of his or her self-concept. If you are moral, you are less likely to use power for your own good

Legitimate Power

The lawful right to make a decision and expect compliance is called legitimate power. People at the highest levels in the organization have more power than do people below them. However, organizational culture helps establish the limits to anyone's power.

Meaning of Org Politics

The meaning of organizational politics continues to shift in a positive, constructive direction. Politics are often used to advance the purposes of the leader's group such as obtaining valuable resources.

Empowering Practices

The practices that foster empowerment supplement the standard approaches to participative management, such as conferring with team members before reaching a decision.

Power Stemming from Managing Critical Problems

The strategic contingency theory of power suggests that units best able to cope with the firm's critical problems and uncertainties acquire relatively large amounts of power. For example, that when an organization faces substantial lawsuits, the legal department will gain power and influence over organizational decisions.

Power Stemming from Ownership

The strength of ownership power depends on how closely the leader is linked to shareholders and board members. A leader's ownership power is also associated with how much money he or she has invested in the firm. The person who holds the Gold rules

Meaning

The value of a work goal, evaluated in relation to a person's ideals or standards. Work has meaning when there is a fit between the requirements of a work role and a person's beliefs, values, and behaviors. A person who is doing meaningful work is likely to feel empowered.

Techniques to gain power: Control vital information

They control the vital information of knowing whom to contact in order to sidestep some of the roadblocks to getting government contracts approved. Successful leaders develop a pipeline to help them keep abreast, or even ahead, of developments within the firm. For this reason, a politically astute individual befriends the president's assistant.

Ethical Political Tactics and Strategies

This section describes a sampling of ethical political behaviors, divided into three related groups: tactics and strategies aimed at 1.- gaining power, 2.- building relationships with superiors and coworkers, and 3.- avoiding political blunders.

Personal Power

Three sources of power stem from characteristics or behaviors of the power actor: expert power, referent power, and prestige power. THEY are all Personal Power because they are derived from the person rather than the organization.

Power

To exercise influence, a leader must have power, the potential or ability to influence decisions and control resources.

Political Tactics and Strategies

To make effective use of organizational politics, leaders must be aware of specific political tactics and strategies. Leaders so frequently need support for their programs that they search for innovative types of political behaviors. The impact of political tactics and strategies by leaders on the behaviors of subordinates and colleagues depends to a large extent on perceptions of politics.

Allow Group Members to Choose Methods

Under ideal conditions, the leader or manager explains to the individual or group what needs to be done (sets a direction) and lets the people involved choose the method. Explaining why the tasks need to be performed is also important.

Environmental Uncertainty and Turbulence

When people operate in an unstable and unpredictable environment, they tend to behave politically. They rely on organizational politics to create a favorable impression because uncertainty makes it difficult to determine what they should really be accomplishing.

Techniques to gain power: Have a compelling vision

a compelling vision helps the leader exercise power. A compelling vision in this context is a socially valuable objective. A leader within a school system will often recommend a particular initiative, such as establishing rewards for good teachers, because it is in the best interests of the children.

3 Variables studied affected by empowerment

behavioral integration, top-management team potency, and the performance of the firm

Strategies: Building relationships with superiors and coworkers

building positive relationships with network members who can be helpful now or later. This network includes superiors, subordinates, other lower-ranking people, coworkers, external customers, and suppliers. Following are several representative strategies and tactics: 1.- Display loyalty 2.- Manage your impression (positive) 3.- Ask satisfied customers to contact your boss 4.- Be courteous, pleasant, and positive 5.- Ask advice 6.- Send thank-you notes to large numbers of people 7.- Flatter others sensibly

Four components of Empowerment (1 extra)

meaning competence self-determination impact Internal Commitment

Competence

or self-efficacy, is an individual's belief in his or her capability to perform a particular task well. People who feel competent believe that they have the capability to meet performance requirements in a given situation

Behavioral integration

refers to subordinates integrating the empowered approaches into their regular activities, specifically information exchange, collaborative behavior, and joint decision making.

Expert power

the ability to influence others through specialized knowledge, skills, or abilities. A component of expert power is having information not widely possessed by others, such as being an accurate predictor of commodity prices.

Prestige power

the power stemming from a person's status and reputation. A manager who has accumulated important business successes acquires prestige power. A manager who has accumulated important business successes acquires prestige power.