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Organization politics and Influence Tactics
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Organizational Powers (Legitimate, Reward, Coercive)
What is power? Power is the ability to coerce, influence, or control people or things.
Having power and using power are two different things. Those who have power may choose to
use it wisely or misuse it, but the fact that they hold a powerful position will be obeyed by those
who are below them in the power rank. For example, a teacher with power over students will be
obeyed upon making any request. Despite having the ability, to reward or punish students, the
decision lies entirely to him.
According to research, there are six power sources: legitimate, reward, coercive, expert,
information, and referent. These powers are gained or influenced depending on the situation
(French & Raven, 1960). Legitimate, reward, and coercive powers are more executive powers,
while expert power is associated with skills, and referent powers are personal powers that are
natural. Information power is considered a power when one has access to specific data or
information, which gives him bargaining power; otherwise, it is similar to expert power but
differs in its source.
Legitimate power is the power that comes from a position or organization's role. For
example, a school principal uses a legitimization influence tactic to assign teachers to attend
different classes and cleaners to perform specific roles in the school compound, like sweeping. In
contrast, cooks are assigned to prepare food. Whether they obey or perform requested tasks, they
agree to comply with the principal's request because they accept the position's legitimacy. Start-
up organizations often have founders who use their legitimate influence to influence employees
to work for long hours to help the company survive. In this case, the principal and the founder
use their legitimate power to ensure their requests are obeyed.
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Reward power is the ability to grant an incentive, or a bounty, such as a perk, pay
increase, or a simple task. Anyone can wield reward power to gain ego due to public or colleague
praise or for paying someone a reward for their compliance. For example, company CEOny uses
inspirational influence to open more companies and may give employees a principal or start-up
capital, a 40% stake, and a partnership to new viable ideas for starting a company. This way, the
CEO would retain his position, maintain equity and grow more companies. Here, the CEO uses
reward power to achieve more of his objectives.
Coercive power is taking something away or punishing someone for noncompliance. This
works through intimidation and fear by taking people's choices and forcing them to do what they
want unwillingly. A good example was when John Wiley & Sons Inc. published an unauthorized
biography of Steve Jobs; Steve's response was to prohibit selling all books from that publisher in
any Apple retail stores (Hafner, 2005). High-profile individual who holds powerful government
positions also uses coercive power in government. In America, President Lyndon Baines Johnson
used a pressure tactic to compare his staff with an ant by reminding him that the White House
had two kinds, an elephant and ants, while himself was an elephant (Hughes, Ginnet, & Curphy,
1995).
Personal powers (Expert, Referent)
Personal power is a person's power based on skills, competencies, characteristics, and
other attributes. Although they are not formal, these powers can influence, inspire and motivate
others. We will narrow down to two types of personal powers: expert and referent.
Expert power comes from knowledge and skills. The knowledge and skills are gained
from working longtime or doing research in a specified area or field. For example, managers
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who have worked in the same organization for years will have the expertise to deal with
employees and the ability to interact with customers and know what they want even before they
articulate it.
Referent power comes from the personal character's influence on others to like, respect,
or wish to be like them. Some may refer to this power as charisma – the ability to win admiration
from others and attract or influence without logic.
Depending on the situation, people tend to use all five powers. The organizations or
governments may sometimes use a matrix structure which blurs the difference of these powers
since everyone communicates regardless of their position. For example, an aspirant for a political
seat would embark on his referent powers, use his expertise on politics, and coerce voters to win
their votes, and after winning the seat, use his legitimate powers to assign duties and finally
reward powers to reward loyalists for continuing executing their tasks and duties. Hence these
powers are interdependent.
Influence Tactics
Influence is the power or tactics to affect, control or manipulate something or someone to
change their decision and follow your direction. These tactics are majorly divided into two, that
is, soft and hard tactics depending on the scope of influence you need. Examples of soft tactics
include personal appeals, coalitions, rational persuasion, emotional appeals, and consultations,
while brutal tactics include legitimization, exchange, ingratiation, and pressure. Depending on
the influence direction and tactics used, the outcomes are resistance, compliance, commitment,
or frequently used (Falbe, C.M., & Yulk, G., 1992). Leaders use these tactics to remain effective
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in a vast number of situations. However, they need to expand these skills to become competent in
several techniques by knowing how, where, and when to apply them.
Leaders in an organization need to use soft tactics such as personal appeals to win
employees to work for more hours and to deliver more. In contrast, they use brutal tactics like
pressure tactics like threatening to fire lazy employees if they have a habit of not completing
assigned tasks. Situations command these tactics. For example, employees may make a demand
that would not be met, threatening to strike. In this case, they use coalition tactics to air their
grievance; leaders should use consultative tactics to solve a return-to-work formula—the extent
to which these tactics, whether soft or hard, depending on the outcome. Leaders should be
flexible to shift, change or use multiple tactics to achieve maximum results.
Small and start-up leadership and Organizational politics
The politics of every organization differ from one to the other depending on the area of
specialization. Every organization in the same area of specialization, small or large, has similar
or relatable policies and politics. Small and start-up organizations have fewer employees;
therefore, weeding is easy, non-complicated policies, managers can associate and influence their
authority, and establishing healthy relationships among employees and leaders is easy.
Organizational politics refers to various activities associated with using influence tactics
to improve personal or organizational interests. There are four central metaphors of organization
politics: the woods, the weed, the high ground, and the rocks.
The weed quadrant is a personal and informal network sector where dynamics grow
without maintenance. In this quadrant, informal coalitions are formed within the organization to
cover, maintain and ease situations in which the managers fail. If unchecked, weeds can form a
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dense mat where nothing else grows. The informal coalition can be a countervailing force to
legitimate power and the long-term power interests of the organization. To deal with these, the
manager should get involved enough to understand the informal networks at play.
The rocks symbolize a stabilizing foundation of authority, strong ties, and roles that
keeps the organization steady in times of crisis. Here the leadership navigates the traditional
sources of power instead of fighting for power. To solve conflicts, leaders use bureaucracy as the
most rational way to organize and coordinate a firm.
The high ground combines formal authority with organizational systems. These are the
policies, guidelines, rules, structures, and procedures that form political activities. They keep the
organization in check; however, too much bureaucracy can be used as a political device to
challenge interests not aligned with bureaucrats, thus preventing innovations and change.
Managers should set up a task force or innovation labs to remove bureaucratic barriers.
The woods is the part where guidelines and rules protect the employees. This quadrant
provides safety to workers, and changes get lost if left unmotivated. Managers should try as
much as possible to understand their employees rather than judging their behaviors to avoid
dysfunctionalities and hidden agendas. They should engage in more positive political behaviors
at all levels of the organization.
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Reference
Drory, A., & Romm, T. (1990). The definition of organizational politics: A review.D
Human relations,D43(11), 1133-1154.
Allen, R. W., Madison, D. L., Porter, L. W., Renwick, P. A., & Mayes, B. T. (1979).
Organizational politics: Tactics and characteristics of its actors.D
California management review,D22(1), 77-83.
Barbuto Jr, J. E., & Moss, J. A. (2006). Dispositional effects in intra-organizational influence
tactics:
A meta-analytic review.DJournal of Leadership & Organizational Studies,D12(3), 30-48.
Vecchio, R. P., & Sussmann, M. (1991). Choice of influence tactics:
Individual and organizational determinants.DJournal of Organizational Behavior, 73-80.
