Power in Organizations - Essay Example

? Power in Organizations Introduction Power is often regarded as one of the most vital components of managerial operations within an organization. Notably, power will enable maximum efficiency in managerial practices of any organization. Experts depict power as one of the common form of energy needed by an individual or a team with regard to commence and sustain actions within an organization. The significance of power for leaders and managers within any organization can be depicted from the fact that in the absence of proper authority they would not be able to ensure maximum and effective utilization of their skills and abilities in accomplishing the goals of the organization (Clegg, Courpasson & Phillips, 2006). With reference to this aspect, the paper will discuss about the importance of power within an organization in a more diversified manner. Additionally, the paper also ensures a discussion regarding steps that the organization takes in order to encourage its employees and management to adopt and maintain an ethical and legal approach in their activities within organizational operations. Discussion Importance of power in an Organization The significance and the strong presence of power within an organization depict the fact that in the absence of it, proper execution of the operational activities of the organization will be highly uncertain. In precise, it can be depicted that power, which is mostly associated with the top level management and leaders of organizations is utilized as a major resources towards directing and accomplishing the goals and activities set by the organization for long and short term. Furthermore, the possessor of power in an organization will have the authority to manage various resources of the organization to ensure optimization of the benefits acquired from the same. Contextually, it will be vital to mention that effective use of these resources will further result in accomplishment of the organizational objectives, ensuring overall efficiency of the organization. Apart, from this vital aspect, power of a leader and a manager implies about their ability to influence higher authorities of an organization for accomplishment of the desired goals. Additionally, power of leaders and mangers assist them in promoting and reforming advanced strategies prevailing within an organization. This will enhance the probability of getting positive results from the utilization of the aforementioned resources. In addition to that, the possessor of power (leaders or managers) in any organization will also have the privilege to decide on the size of the organization, incorporation of latest technologies, operational approaches of the organization and allocations of the resources among other. Hence, it can be affirmed that a person acquiring maximum power in any organization will have his/her presence and influence in almost every sector of the organization with which he/she will be accountable to steer the overall performance of the organization towards a positive direction (Clegg, Courpasson & Phillips, 2006). Types of Power The above discussion apparently depicts the importance of power in an organization. However, to gain a comprehensive understanding regarding the facet of power in any organization, the various forms and sources of power will be vital to illustrate. In general, there are five types of power in any organization which further include coercive, legitimate, reward, referent and expert power among others. Coercive power, also regarded as the most primitive form of power in workplace that provides a person with the authority to punish or threaten the subordinates owing to non-completion of any task or inefficiency in the same. This kind of power is implemented in scenarios where business is in a deteriorating position (Morgan, 2006). Subsequently, legitimate power refers to the formal rights of the top level leaders related to their designation within an organization. This type of power is quite universal and applied in ensuring proper functioning of the business through deliverance of commands. Reward power include the powers of leaders use to motivate the employees. Apart from this, referent power implies the power gain by leaders owing to the trust and admiration of the employees. This power is mainly achieve through strong interpersonal relationship within the organization. Subsequently, expert power is acquire by those leaders or managers who have the expertise in particular domain. All these aforementioned power intends towards enhancing the operation of organization in one way or the other. However, in concluding the discussion, it will be vital to mention that these kinds of power in any organizations are also synonymously depicted as the sources from where leaders acquire their power (Morgan, 2006). Illustration of Power in Organization (Real Example) The importance of power in organization is quite apparent from the overall discussion. However, in order to justify this stand, the example of the power of Alan Mulally, as a leader of Ford Motor Company will be supportive. The company was in the verge of collapse when Mulally joined as the CEO. He utilized his power legitimately that was associated with his designation in reforming the organization. He took fearless decisions such as cutting manufacturing level, selling the luxury brands and emphasizing on low price models and reducing employee bonus among others which were criticized by many of the industry experts. However, his decisions proved effective for the company which results in the rising performance of the company in successive years i.e. Ford Motor Company as a market leader (Hoffman, 2012). This further depicts the significance of power in any organization. Encouraging Ethical Behavior among Employees and Management With the changing nature of business, it has been depicted that ethical performance of companies has acquired a significant place for itself. Contextually, it will be worth mentioning that ethical performance of a company is directly and entirely dependent on the ethical conduct of its management and employees. With reference to this, promoting ethical conduct within an organization has become part of the operational activities. The first step company generally adopt towards promoting ethical conduct is training the human resource. In this session, organization will convey the code of ethics that employees and management needs to comply with. This will also ensure that the management and the employees are aware of the ethical expectations of the organization. Furthermore, with regard to encouraging and maintaining the ethical conduct, organizations can also design rewards and punishments both for negative conduct and positive conduct. Rewards for positive conducts might include incentives, promotions etc while for negative ethical conduct it might include monetary fines, demotions etc. In addition to this, organizations will also need to ensure that the top level leaders of the organization lead by example for the employees portraying optimum ethical conduct in the workplace. Moreover, maintaining work-life balance is also a vital criterion that might encourage employees and management to perform ethically in the workplace. According to the survey report of the Accounting Web website in 2007, it has been depicted that around 91% of the employees described about the role of proper work-life towards ensuring maximum ethical conduct among them (Gupta, 2004). Conclusion From the overall analysis, it is apparent that power has significant influence in the performance of any organization. With proper authority, leaders and top level management will have the privilege to take fearless decision in the best interest of the organization without getting influence from external pressure. However, improper use of power might also accompany negative results for any organizations. Hence, the role of code of ethics which ensures ethical conduct of the employees and management will be a vital prospect to be encouraged within the organization. From the overall analysis, it can be concluded that power and organization move in hand in hand to ensure effectiveness and efficiency of organizational performance. References Clegg, S. R., Courpasson, D., & Phillips, N. (2006). Power and organizations. London: SAGE. Gupta, A. D. (2004). Human values in management. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Hoffman, B. C. (2012). American icon: Alan Mulally and the fight to save ford motor company. New York: Random House LLC. Morgan, G. (2006). Images of organization. London: SAGE. Read More