The product has been around since 1963, which is Mary Kay Cosmetics, and to supplement her income, our office manager became a beauty consultant. The pressure to place an order with her was a form of leadership coercive power, which had a negative impact in the workplace. I am not one for Mary Kay products, and neither were several of my co-workers, who also felt uncomfortable with informing our manager that it has nothing to do with her personally, it is just that some of us are not interested in the product. Awkwardly, the office manager happened to be good friends with the owner of the business, which made it more difficult to express our disinterest in making purchases. The indiscreet act of leaving an order form on a table in the break room for the entire week, created unnecessary stress for those of us who had no interest. Just to note, I have nothing against the Mary Kay product line, it is just not for me.
To place an order would basically serve for the sole purpose of appeasing the manager. The problem is that, for those whose name did not appear on the order form, which was visible for anyone to view in the break room, reflected poorly on us as team players. It made us feel uncomfortable and somewhat inferior. Simply put, we had no interest in the product, not the manager, which she took personally. Unfortunately, the manager did not see it that way. Instead, we experienced the opposite of reward power from our manager. She used coercive power by means of excluding those who did not place an order from taking personal or vacation days off. It seemed that whenever we submitted a request for a specific day off, an important meeting or something else on the calendar was conflicting with those date(s) and the request was denied. The manager was basically punishing the “non-order” employees, and giving special treatment to the “ordering” employees. The position power our manager had, was used to force to effect change (Northouse, 2016).
Coerce means to influence others to do something against their will, which may include manipulating penalties. In our case, we were denied requested personal and vacation days off. Instead, she would offer alternative and less desirable set of dates to choose from. I refrain from using the term, “shun,” but it seemed for those of us who were “non-order” employees, the manager was not kind and friendly on a daily basis, which had an impact on our job performance. According to Northouse, “Leaders who use coercion are interested in their own goals and seldom are interested in the wants and needs of followers,” suggesting that leadership is reserved for those who influence a group of individuals toward a common goal. It runs counter to working with followers to achieve those same common goal.
Ultimately, the manager began to notice fewer orders on the sign-up sheets, and eventually stopped placing them in the break room. Under the circumstances, employees took control by refusing to participate in such an unprofessional and unacceptable situation. The message was clear and the coercion power the manager applied, gradually diminished.
REFERENCES:
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Penn State World Campus (n.d.). Leadership Development: A Life-Long Learning Perspective. [Commentary]. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1834747/modules/items/21827886
Abigail Marie Sanchez says
Hello,
I found your blog post to be very interesting.
One because I have an aunt that sells Mary Kay products as well! Let me tell you, if can be very annoying sometimes. Every single Birthday present, Christmas present, etc. etc. etc. I have been given samples of Mary Kay. If not, I always hear how I should buy their products, and I have never. Also for the same reason that you said above just never been interested.
The second reason why I found your post interesting was because I am a similar issue happen at an old job of mine. The director of that facility had a fundraiser and ended up putting the fundraiser paper in the break room. But instead my director used what we learned as reward power. She mentioned to us that the classroom that bought and got the parents to buy the most off the fundraiser that classroom will get a pizza party and the teacher of that classroom will get the day they want off and get paid. Now, the fundraiser was selling dark chocolate. It was super annoying because I (at the time, because now I love dark chocolate) did not like dark chocolate and was surrounded by a lot of people who did not like dark chocolate or chocolate in general.
So my classroom lost 🙁