When is coercive power necessary?
Coercive power is the ability to control others through the fear of punishment or the loss of valued outcomes (PSU WC, 2014, L. 7). A few examples of coercive power in an organization are termination, demotion, revoking privileges, or suspension. The use of coercive power seems to be a bit extreme, but in some cases it may be necessary. There are a number of different scenarios in which coercive power is effective in the workplace.
If any employee is being defiant, consistently late, or constantly taking time off, then coercive power can be used to threaten the employees. Leaders could threaten to dock pay or even refuse to pay the employee for the time that they took off. Any type of insubordination could be stopped early on with the implementation of coercive power.
Organizations that have their own policies and regulations could use coercive power to ensure that their employees are following their rules. Coercive power aids in the demand of compliance to the organizations protocol for new and veteran employees. If a company is undergoing any changes then coercive power could deter any resistance from employees.
Coercive power is also effective when preventing harassment in the workplace. The threat of termination or a civil lawsuit as a punishment helps to reinforce harassment policies set in place by the organization.
Coercive power gives a leader control over what is happening in their organization. It maintains employee discipline, enforces organization policies, and maintains a harassment free environment. At times, punishment, or even the threat of punishment is necessary to establish a successful, incident free organization.
References:
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2014). Leadership in work settings. PSYCH 485. Retrieved from:
https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa14/psych485/002/content/07_lesson/05_page.html
Joseph Randall Gonzalez says
I do agree that coercive power is necessary for some situations, but if it is constantly used to reprimand an employee I feel it could create a hostile work environment for all employees thus causing high turnover instead of consistency. I do think coercive power does help in situations such as abuse of time off or constant defiance of policies to kind of shake up the employee that he this can happen.
But I do think that every one has coercive power at some point while working not just the leader. For example my one co-worker went to HR and filed a hostile work environment claim about a certain employee. That HR personnel used her coercive power to bring to the attention of the abuser that they could be let go from the organization. So although my co-worker wasn’t in a leadership position she felt the need to take her concerns to a higher power to change her environment, which I see as coercive, but a little sneakier
Michael David Robinson says
I would argue that if an organization finds itself in the position of having to rely on coercive power to a great extent, then this represents a failure of leadership in and of itself.
Consider all of the theories that we have studied in this class that point to the fact that coercive and authoritarian modes of leadership simply are not effective in the vast majority of situations. For instance, you have team leadership which focuses on building teams and teaching the members to be independent and rely on each other and create a supportive attitude for team members. Then you have servant leadership, which holds that the leader exists to serve his followers, with the goal of creating the same service attitude within them, and stresses the importance of making sure that team members’ professional and personal needs are being met. Then take a look at the Blake and Mouton leadership grid. According to it, team management is the most effective leadership style.
I do agree that there are limited circumstances when coercive power is necessary. Like you mentioned when you stated “if any employee is being defiant, consistently late, or constantly taking time off, then coercive power can be used to threaten the employees.”
However, if you find these situations occurring more than once in a blue moon, such that coercive power comes to be seen as the norm or, at least, an accepted part of the organizational culture, then you really need to reevaluate your hiring practices.
As I mentioned earlier, I believe that considered en masse, the totality of the course information points toward coercive leadership styles as being ineffective and not good long term strategies. If your organization finds itself in a situation where it has to resort to these actions often, it is time to make some serious changes.