Power in Organizations
Power is the ability to make things happen according to one’s perspective by getting someone else to do it for you. It is mainly beneficial in organizations where the managers assign tasks to different employees and make them do those tasks. It is their role to guide on what employees should do to achieve organizational success. Power aids in providing a sense of direction towards the organizational goals.
In organizations, there are various sources of power. However, the primary source of power is the legitimate power, which means the power assigned based on job designation. It is allocated according to the rank level within the organization (Kotter, 2008). Officers in the higher level such as management are perceived to have power over junior employees. Besides, other sources of power are relevant in an organization. Experts in a certain field have enough knowledge on that area giving them power over employees lacking such knowledge.
Power is responsible for ensuring employee commitment and compliance in the organization. It aids in avoiding resistance among employees ensuring they coexist in harmony, which leads to increased productivity. Even though managers are perceived to have power, they also need to work on leadership, which is an essential element in organizational power. They need to empower fellow employees by making useful decisions that help them and their work.
Empowerment allows employees to maximize their potential, which leads to more experience and job satisfaction.
However, employees need the training to enable them to expand their horizons. It is done through delegation. Delegation is the distributing power from the top manager to organizational employees granting them the authority to make important organizational decisions (Millard, 2002). It reduces the lag time in making influential decisions that affect the normal functioning of the organization. It increases the organizational response time and makes employees comfortable to raise issues and contribute. It results in overall job satisfaction in the organization.
References
Kotter, J. (2008). Power, success, and organizational effectiveness. Organizational Dynamics, 6(3), 27-40. doi:10.1016/90-2616(78)946-3
Millard, C. (2002). Being the boss: The importance of leadership & power. Organizational Dynamics, 21(2), 73-75. doi:10.1016/00-2616(92)966-v
I enjoyed reading your post about power in organizations. One thing that really stood out to me was that empowering employees in an organization can have a positive effect on the organizations overall success. Even though I agree with that concept, I believe that one of the biggest issues in larger organizations, is the need to have more power than the next individual and this can lead to several workplace conflicts. As an example, if management decides to give equal power to all the employees, where does the motivation to do better to get that big pay raise or even that summer vacation for the employee of the year stands?
One might think having power is good and ideal, however power can be an issue specially when it comes to issues of difficult colleagues (Nelson A., 2017). Power changes people and those who rise to the tops of companies and other organizations tend to prioritize their own goals and desires above those of others (Greer L., 2014). Based on this simple fact, I believe the best way for organizations to reward their employees with higher positions and better pay is by having everyone follow a set of guidelines that no matter what, everyone including management should respect and follow. For example, one of those guidelines should be that whatever decision that an employee makes, it should only be for the benefit of the organization and nothing else.
I believe if everyone, and I mean every associate of an organization from the entry level clerk to the CEO, all should follow a set of guidelines so that way everyone knows that there are no shortcuts when it comes to achievements. All of this will lead to less conflicts between employees and healthier positive competition amongst colleagues for success.
References
Greer, L. (2014). Stanford Graduate School of Business., (2014, January 16). How Power Struggles Escalate. Retrieved February 23, 2017, from http://www.gsb.stanford.edu
Nelson, A. (2017). Lesson 7. Applied social psychology: Organizational Life and Teams. Presented on the PSYCH 424 course content site lecture at the Pennsylvania State University.