Reading through lesson seven this week has brought many memories back of people in power and situations I have either been in or witnessed.
I now realize why I had issues with my second boss at the organization I worked for. I did not realize at the time I had expert power. As we learned in lesson seven, “expert power is the power of knowledge”, “in certain situations, followers have more power than leaders, when that follower has worked at the company for ten years” (PSU WC, 2014, L.7). I was going on my tenth year with the company when she was hired. My previous boss had left for a new career opportunity. I have always thought up until now that she was intimidated by my ex boss’s reputation but perhaps it also was the power that I held. I had developed great relationships with our clients and members throughout the years. I knew the processes that worked and the processes that failed. She was starting from scratch and did not have the same power as my previous boss. She was hired as a director and never promoted, whereas, my old boss was hired as a director to later become Vice President Human Resources.
I am sure my new boss felt she had legitimate power since she was hired for the position. We learned that “legitimate power is a function of the situation” (PSU WC, 2014, L.7). Legitimate power occurs when the leader assigns tasks to her employees.
I also witnessed an example of referent power in this organization. We learned in lesson seven that “referent power is a function of the leader and follower” (PSU WC, 2014, L.7). Referent power makes it hard for managers to fire incompetent employees because they long to be liked by their employees. We had this problem when our customer service manager had to fire an employee that worked for the organization for over fifteen years. It was necessary because she stopped performing her job. Other employees had to pick up her slack and were upset about this.
Reward power happened in my department more than others. We learned that “reward power is a function of the relationship among leaders, followers, and situations” (PSU WC, 2014, L.7). It is when leaders influence their employees to do well by offering a reward. For instance great work performance could result in a bonus. I was given a bonus many times from my hard work in different aspects of my job. I was also given gift cards for different accomplishments. I think this motivates employees to do well. Who doesn’t like a reward? As parents we offer rewards to our children for good grades. As a teacher, we are offered good grades for great performance.
Power influences everything we do. We are either in power or striving to be in power. One valuable message I learned from this lesson is that we can all gain power if we work hard for it. We assume that only leaders have the power. As we learned from the video from lesson seven “Power is potential and influence is power in use” (PSU WC, 2014, L.7). This means we all have the potential to be in power despite our position and can influence others by using that power.
Reference:
Pennsylvania State University. (2014). Leadership in Work Settings. Retrieved at: https://cms.psu.edu