PRESENTATION TO THE BOARD

The Influence of Politics and Powers

Name

Institution

The Influence of Politics and Powers

Politics and power are seen as one of the success indicators of a firm since it impacts both long-term as well as short-term business decisions. In other words, the progress of Well Fargo Company can be defined by the way the staff members use their powers. Therefore, politics has a significant influence on the organizational culture because all decision-making process is via a powerful influence of a specific politic (Zaleznik, 2014).

Organizational power can be either negative or positive. Positive power within Well Fargo Company can improve its productivity by application of motivational means of rewarding hardworking employees, fair promotion criteria, and recognizing any simple improvement. Such decisions help in improving the employee's confidence and work harder to achieve the common goal of the organization. Therefore, expertise in organizational politics believes that company should establish an easy political set up and command chain to improve the communication between employees and the senior management (Zaleznik, 2014).

On the other hand, disrespect directed on employees from the senior management is a sign of negative politics and can lead to a low rate of productivity since the employees lack the motivation to work hard on achieving the organization's goal. Such companies include a high level of favoritism of specific workers and assumption of hard work. The huge gap between the management and the employees results in the company having multiple problems with customers due to the unethicality or dishonesty of the employees.

Sources of powers

Legitimate Power

Legitimate power exists when an individual occupies a position in the hierarchal power set-up of an organization. A good example is the CEO or Managing Director (MD). Such individuals can use their powers to assign duties to other employees and can participate in top decision making such as hiring, firing and defining strategies that the company will use (Zaleznik, 2014).

Expertise Power

Wells Fargo Company will value individual according to their expertise skills, i.e. holding a specific knowledge is a certain area of the company. such individuals have the ability to influence everyone in the company, including senior management on the basis of their specialized skills. It is believed that expertise skill is thought to be a step to senior management or legitimate power (Zeiger, 2016).

Referent power

It is the ability of a leader to build admiration from employees in a way they would like to be like him/her. In short, it is leading by example. The basis of referent power is a leader modeling their behavior in a way that it serves as a role model to the rest of the company. this source of power needs a high degree of trust between the management and employees since the manager will empower them by delegating some levels of decision making (Pettigrew & McNulty, 1995).

Leadership Behavior and Culture

In this scenario, Wells Fargo requires a new establishment of leadership to improve the identity of the company. Wells Fargo needs to control the human resources as well as investing more in customer service programs. Therefore, the company needs to focus on training new employees on the organization culture as well as acceptable behavior standards. In other words, when hiring interns, they need to have a close monitoring of their response to the organizational culture since they will soon be transmitting it to other staffs. This strategy will lead to a proper customer service while advancing the company’s public image (Pettigrew & McNulty, 1995).

Leadership influence

Leadership influence is when an individual affects the behavior of another individual or group due to their position in authority. The first influence is silence leadership that doesn’t demand influence and it’s always from the top management. Assertive influence is when the manager uses speech confrontation in an attempt to modify the behavior of staff. Persuasion influence is where the leader uses logic and facts as a way to appeal the behavior of staff. On the other hand, employees can use the upward appeal in an attempt to influence the behavior of the management. Also, employees have the right to strike as a way to improve the behavior of the workers (Zeiger, 2016).

The staff behavior of a company is described by the state of organizational culture. It’s the belief that guides the staff on the acceptable moral standards for the specific organization. Furthermore, leadership that is based on the company’s culture develop a health platform for the organization’s core values. The influence of employees, as well as the company’s leadership, can promote a consistent behavior which reduces conflict while creating a healthy working environment (Zeiger, 2016).

Executive Summary

In summary, power and politics have a significant contribution to the overall productivity of an organization. Therefore, it is relevant to establish a strategic organizational framework that serves as an identification of the company. a proper identification can define big management lines in the decision-making process as well as criteria for completing a task. Therefore, selecting an expertise person for their specific task can save the company from unnecessary coalition from the management since there would be an improved level of confidence which interprets to high productivity rate. For Wells Fargo to stay ahead of competition there is a need for the company to maximize the positive aspects of power and politics in the organization (Zeiger, 2016).

References

Pettigrew, A., & McNulty, T. (1995). Power and influence in and around the boardroom. Human relations, 48(8), 845-873.

Zaleznik, A. (2014, August 01). Power and Politics in Organizational Life. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1970/05/power-and-politics-in-organizational-life

Zeiger, S. (2016, October 26). The Impact of Power and Politics in Organizational Productivity. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/impact-power-politics-organizational-productivity-35942.html