MGT380 week 4 discussion 1&2

Assessment 4.4: Personal Power Profile

Instructions: The following is a list of statements that may be used in describing behaviors that supervisors (leaders) in work organizations can direct toward their subordinates (followers). First, carefully read each descriptive statement, thinking in terms of how you prefer to influence others. Mark the number that most closely represents how you feel.

To influence others, I would prefer to:

	Strongly Agree	Disagree	Slightly Disagree	Neither Agree nor Disagree	Slightly Agree	Agree	Strongly Agree
1. Increase their pay level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
2. Make them feel valued	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
3. Give undesirable job assignments	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
4. Make them feel like I approve of them	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
5. Make them feel that they have commitments to meet	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
6. Make them feel personally accepted	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
7. Make them feel important	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8. Give them good technical suggestions	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
9. Make the work difficult for them	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
10. Share my experience or training	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
11 . Make things unpleasant here	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
12. Make being at work distasteful	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
13. Influence their getting a pay increase	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
14. Make them feel like they should satisfy their job requirements	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
15. Provide them with sound job-related advice	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
16. Provide them with special benefits	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
17. Influence their getting a promotion	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
18. Give them the feeling that they have responsibilities to fulfill	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
19. Provide them with needed technical knowledge	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
20. Make them recognize that they have tasks to accomplish	1	2	3	4	5	6	7

Scoring: Using the following grid, insert your scores for the 20 questions. For reward power, sum your responses to items 1, 13, 16, and 17 and divide by 4. For coercive power, sum your responses to items 3, 9, 11, and 12 and divide by 4. For legitimate power, sum your responses to questions 5, 14, 18, and 20 and divide by 4. For referent power, sum your responses to questions 2, 4, 6, and 7 and divide by 4. For expert power, sum your responses to questions 8, 10, 15, and 19 and divide by 4.

Reward	Coercive	Legitimate	Referent	Expert
1. _________	3. _________	5. _________	2. _________	8. _________
13. _________	9. _________	14. _________	4. _________	10. _________
16. _________	11. _________	18. _________	6. _________	15. _________
17. _________	12. _________	20. _________	7. _________	19. _________
Total: _________	Total: ________	Total: ________	Total: ________	Total: ________
Divide by 4: ______	Divide by 4: ______	Divide by 4: ______	Divide by 4: ______	Divide by 4: ______

Interpretation: A high score (6 or greater) on any of the five dimensions of power implies that you prefer to influence others by employing that particular form of power. A low score (2 or less) implies that you prefer not to employ that particular form of power to influence others. These scores represent your power profile. Your overall power profile is not reflected by the simple sum of each of the five sources. Instead, some combinations of power are synergistic in nature—they are greater than the sum of their parts. For example, referent power tends to magnify the impact of other power sources because these other influence attempts are coming from a respected person. Reward power often increases the impact of referent power, because people generally tend to like those who give them things that they desire. Some power combinations tend to produce the opposite of synergistic effects, such that the total is less than the sum of the parts. Power dilution frequently accompanies the use of (or threatened use of) coercive power.

Source: Modified version of T.R. Hinkin and C.A. Schriesheim, "Development and Application of New Scales to Measure the French and Raven (1959) Bases of Social Power," Journal of Applied Psychology 74 (1989), pp. 561-567. Copyright 1989, American Psychological Association, adapted and printed with permission.