How Power Manifests Itself in the Organisation - Essay Example

? How power relations and organisational politics affect organisational change and development and the role of political behaviour in change processes BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE DATE HERE 1. Introduction One of the most fundamentally important dimensions of management activity is to ensure that employees’ job roles and responsibilities are aligned to meet strategic goals established at the executive level of the organisation. Organisations consist of diverse individuals, each maintaining unique, inherent values, ethical constructs and principles that determine how an individual views their role in the organisation and how they develop effective or destructive relationships with other organisational actors. It is due to these disparities in attitude that some forms of conflict begin to surface between managers and employees or even between colleagues at the same levels of authority in the organisation. It is not, however, solely due to attitude, the intangibles of psychological programming, that leads to conflict in the organisation. Especially relevant in highly bureaucratic organisations with thick layers of management, political gaming surfaces when individuals who believe they hold power resources or seek to fulfil a self-serving agenda create a unique type of conflict that is much more difficult to thrive within. This is referred to as organisational politics, “the management of influence to obtain ends not sanctioned by the organisation” (Mayes and Allen 1977, p.673). Because recognised political behaviour is not condoned by the systems and policies established by the organisation, it becomes more difficult for those being persuaded by political positioning to recognise what drives power struggles and therefore serve to counteract it when it occurs. This paper describes the role of organisational politics and power relationships in the organisation and how these factors influence or impede organisational change. 2. How power manifests itself in the organisation In organisational theory, there are three types of power held by actors in the organisation. The first is coercive power, or changing behaviours of others by demanding compliance. This type of power manifests itself in such scenarios as when the manager uses organisational policies as a transactional template in which compliance leads to rewards and non-compliance leads to punishment. When this type of power manifests itself, employees must conform, however it can lead to long-term resentment or intention to exist the organisation for being forced to operate under oppressive management systems. The second type of power is utilitarian power, a system reliant on rewards and punishments to gain compliance. Pay raises, promotions or even direct threats of potential job loss are tactics utilised under utilitarian power conceptions. This is a common power dynamic in the organisation that incentivises more effective job performance. The third type of power is normative power, in which the organisation, itself, believes that it has the fundamental right to control and govern employee behaviour. Under this power conception, leaders in the organisation establish a unified corporate culture and then demand that employees conform to these socially-driven values even if the individual does not necessarily share the same conceptions. It is highly dependent on the individual emotional and personality-based behaviours within the organisational context as to how power and political behaviour will manifest themselves. This is why organisational politics is considered by many to be a game, consisting of moves and counter-moves between different organisational actors in order to gain persuasive or coercive influence to ensure that the party in conflict complies with the needs and demands of the organisational politician. This game must “be played with due diligence and a full comprehension of the players, rules and organisational landscape” (Bolander 2011, p.2). It would seem that in order to understand how to counteract unethical or unproductive political behaviour, the organisational actor must perform cognitive analyses of what is driving use of power as a coercive tool, examining the tangible motivations behind why the organisational politician is seeking to exert authority over others. Grieves (2010) believes that change must be negotiated between political actors and the rest of the organisational culture in order to gain effective influence. This represents a model of management and/or leadership in which consensus is the focus of interactions between various organisational actors or where the politician seeks opportunities for mutual gain. This is a rather ideological concept that would tend to assume that the complexities of emotionally-based, inherent personality and values constructs are not taken into consideration to enact and influence change in employee groups. The reality of the organisation, however, it that individuals actively seek opportunities to fulfil their own political agendas and will resort to using legitimate power (when available) to ensure that others comply with their demands. This is where the dynamics of conflict arise and when resistance to change is most apparent. 3. Power and change When organisational politicians exert their influence on others using legitimate power, this being coercive power justified by organisational policies and procedures, it becomes more difficult to engage others to be participative in change needs. Coercive power tends to alienate employees as this type of power expression does not allow for free expression of concerns or creative workplace solutions and reduces management transparency (Terrell 1989). Coercive power expression does not foster what is referred to as an environment with psychological safety whereby effective communications are hindered by management resistance (Terrell 1989). When coercive power is utilised to gain employee compliance, employees in the organisation that find value and motivation in being more actively involved in decision-making processes can develop resentments and animosity, thus being less encouraged to perform according to managerial or organisational standards. Under respected models of psychology and sociology, individuals that are not given opportunities to find their identity in group structures, they are less apt to seek their highest performance capacity (Morris and Maisto 2005). This is where resistance to change practices occurs, often requiring the implementation of a change agent to become more interactive and empathetic to employees who must comply with demands in order to achieve strategic organisational goals and objectives. Managers who are able to utilise legitimate power as a means of gaining commitment are creating long-term disparities between effective relationship development that will, ultimately, translate into change resistance until trust and respect has been re-infused back into the organisational relationship. Regardless of the specific power conceptions that manifest themselves in the organisation, there are going to be those political actors that have vastly different moral and ethical beliefs that will affect how change is enacted. Swoyer (2003) describes the phenomenon of moral relativism, a belief that there is, genuinely, no singular definition that justifies what is right and what is wrong. Because no single individual can successfully justify using their own conceptions on morality and ethical behaviour, then organisational actors should be tolerant of the behaviour of others even when individuals find themselves in disagreement (Blackford 2010). When a manager is attempting to use legitimate power resources, such as withholding expense accounts to gain compliance, employees affected by these actions will find differing, inherent views about the appropriateness of these behaviours. Whilst the political actor in the organisation may believe in the sanctity of using legitimate control-based authorities to gain commitment and compliance, employees may feel that their rights are being infringed upon and instantly develop negative attitudes about the sacredness of managerial competencies. Markey (1999, p.128) sees power and politics differently, suggesting that managers cannot successfully use “balance of power arguments” to gain and rally organisational support. Under this belief, it would seem that the structure of the organisation serves to justify maintaining higher levels of power distance between managers and lower-ranking employees. Thus, use of legitimate power is justified under normative power theory in which the organisational culture shared by the majority is powerful enough to act as judge and jury regarding the establishment of control over employee behaviours and job function. Again, this is conflicting under the model of ethical relativism stating there is no singular definition of what actually constitutes good moral and ethical behaviours. In any event, using legitimate power would be considered defensible and reasonable to the politician, but completely inappropriate or tasteless to those who do not share the majority values of the organisational culture or maintain strong, inherent objections to what is perceived as immoral behaviour. Politicians in the organisation view power as a form of property; property of individuals, property of interpersonal relationship development, or property of tangible resources in the organisation (Buchanan and Badham 2008). Thus, use of power is dependent on how the politician in the organisation views the viability of their ownership and the degree to which the politician values the inviolability of establishing relationships with employees. Those who recognise and comprehend that they have legitimate power resources by which to coerce others will either use these powers responsibly or blatantly attempt to use them to serve their own interests whilst negating the needs of those being influenced. When managers in the organisation view employees, themselves, as simply a means to achieving an end with little consideration of their emotional constructs, change resistance is the most predictable outcome that can have long-lasting consequences on human capital development and achievement of competitive advantages. It should, however, be identified that not all political behaviour is negative, even though researchers and analysts in the domain of organisational politics tend to paint political behaviour as grossly selfish and, in some cases, deplorable when utilised without considerations of ethical and moral principles held by those being coerced. This is why organisations often assign a change champion to facilitate and monitor change practices, as the change agent becomes an advocate for employees and scans the employment environment looking for opportunities to appeal to the psycho-social characteristics of employees to gain commitment. Change agents develop strategies founded on act utilitarianism, in which the agent seeks opportunities to maximise the utility of all stakeholders involved in the change practice (Hooker 2011). Concepts of leadership founded under the premise of act utilitarianism create a new type of political behaviour: an attempt to establish cooperative coalitions to achieve change goals rather than simply using coercive and legitimate power resources as a tool to gain compliance. Act utilitarianism common in change agents that have been trained to consider employee attitudes and emotions, whilst also working toward fulfilment of organisational demands, represent a positive type of political behaviour that has long-term, positive consequences on employee behaviour and attitude. The organisational politician acting as change agent is no longer just a benevolent spectator of events after dictating change practices, they become an campaigner and supporter that encourages positive responses from individuals or larger employee groups. Consider a situation that occurred at Hereford National Bank and the business development manager Jim Davis who was attempting to gain support for a radical new sales strategy that was meeting with resistance by a manager with 25 years of employment tenure. Davis maintained a legitimate power resource over the resisting manager, being able to withhold expense account perks as a political manoeuvre to ensure compliance (Mainolfi 2000). Instead, Davis conducted an analysis of what was driving this resistance and realised the most effective methodology of gaining change commitment support was to develop a strong team and coalitions throughout the organisational hierarchy. Jim had an opportunity to ensure that compliance was achieved through coercive authority, but instead decided that establishment of partnerships and alliances would serve the change objectives more effectively by creating consensus and reducing conflicts. These behaviours are still highly political in the organisation as a series of non-sanctioned tactics to gain coalition support were enacted that included socialisation outside of the organisational environment in order to create mutual, trusting relationships. Throughout these coalition-building exercises, the change agent is still working toward meeting the goals of the organisation whilst also attempting to maximise the utility of those resisting the change imperatives. Even though dimensions of resisting employee behaviours and attitudes are considered and acted upon, the change agent is still seeking support for his or her own agenda as a primary goal. It should be recognised that power exerts itself differently in the organisation and the methodology by which political behaviour manifests itself will determine whether desired outcomes are achieved with minimal change resistance. In collectivist cultures, it is easier to establish cooperative systems when using normative authority as a power resource as collectivist organisations strongly value group harmony and meeting group needs. In individualistic organisational cultures, the diversity of attitude, lifestyle and ethical programming would reject normative authority as such conceptions would not fit the personality profile of these coerced employee groups. Thus, power and change are dependent on organisational culture, human diversity, and the level of power distance between authority ranks that is deemed acceptable by individuals or collectivist groups. 4. Conclusion Whether attempting to use coercive, normative or utilitarian power resources to gain influence, political behaviour in the organisation is difficult to avoid. The complex dynamics of human attitude and behaviour will predict the type of power that is used against others in the organisation, either leading to effective relationship development or de-motivation of diverse employees in the organisation. Though individualistic organisational cultures would, theoretically, demand more influence and control in decision-making, politicians operating in these environments do not always maintain the same moral and ethical values of the majority. At the same time, having legitimate sources of power by which to satisfy one’s own agenda can, for some, serve as an egotistical opportunity to establish controls over others. Gaining commitment to change imperatives is largely dependent on what attitudes reside in the organisation and whether managers will have inherent ethical value systems that reject social morality when attempting to drive compliance. Annotated bibliography Blackford, R. (2010). Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape, Journal of Evolution and Technology, 21(2), pp.53-62. Describes the concepts of moral relativism and the complexities of establishing a set of right versus wrong moral imperatives among diverse cultural environments. This work compares the different schools of thought on moral and ethical behaviours and how these beliefs will translate to the social environment in the organisation. Bolander, J. (2011). How to deal with organisational politics, The Daily MBA. [online] Available at: http://www.thedailymba.com/2011/02/28/how-to-deal-with-organizational-politics/ This work describes the different structural hierarchies existing in today’s firms and how this translates into dealing effectively with organisational politics in these structures. Formal and informal hierarchies are described along with identification of the different political actors and behaviours common to occur in flat or bureaucratic hierarchies. Buchanan, D.A. and Badham, R.J. (2008). Power, Politics and Organisational Change: Winning the turf game, 2nd ed. [online] Available at: http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/16561_5023_Buchanan_FM.pdf (accessed 24 November 2012). This work describes the many proverbial faces of organisational politics, including many steps by which to thrive within political systems or counteract unethical power influence from organisational actors. The work follows politics from pragmatism to Machiavellian values to assist in gaining understanding of the dynamics of political authority. Grieves, J. (2010). Organisational Change: Themes and Issues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. This book describes the constructs of organisational change, ranging from implementation of the change agent to effective strategies to reduce resistance to change. Grieves describes the complexities of human behaviour and psycho-social needs that influence how employees respond to change and how organisational leaders can address these conceptions. Hooker, B. (2011). Chapter 8: The Demandingness Objection, in T. Chappell The Problem of Moral Demandingness: New Philosophical Essays. Palgrave Macmillan. This chapter describes the dynamics of act utilitarianism and how these conceptions translate into moral and ethical evaluation templates when conflict over values occur between groups. The work gives expected outcomes of act utilitarianism, including self-sacrifice and relationship development among diverse cultures and groups. Mainolfi, D. (2000). Who’s in charge: The Jim Davis Case. Harvard Business School Publishing This work describes a situation occurring at Hereford National Bank where power struggles were occurring between power leaders and lower-ranked employees. It describes challenges to gaining coalition support and the steps taken to ensure compliance by using political behaviour in more positive ideology. Markey, D. (1999). Prestige and the origins of war: Returning to realism’s roots, Security Studies, 8(4), pp.126-172. This work describes the ideologies of fascism and realism and how this would translate for governance political actors in a culture or society. It provides guidance for how political leaders can foster support and compliance along with discussion about the relevancy and appropriateness of the fascist ideology that is aligned with control-based political structures. Mayes, B.T. and Allen, R.W. (1977). Toward a definition of organisational politics, Academy of Management Review, 2(1), pp.672-680. This work provides multiple definitions of organisational politics and power systems in an effort to enhance the readerships’ understanding of power and its role in organisational systems. This work describes organisational politics as being outcomes of non-sanctioned, self-serving strategies and the expected outcomes of maintaining a self-minded influence strategy to gain compliance. Morris, C. and Maisto, A. (2005). Psychology: An Introduction, 11th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall. A multi-diverse explanation of many theories of psychology that deal with human motivation, social relationship development, and they dynamics of personality and attitude that influence performance and achievement of self-actualisation. Swoyer, C. (2003). Relativism Section 1.2, Stanford University. [online] Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/#1.2 (accessed 25 November 2012). This work teaches us about moral relativism and its conceptions. The work describes how conceptions of moral relativism translate into perception, regarding how individuals might predictably behave in the face of different ethical and moral conflicts. Terrell, R.D. (1989). The elusive menace of office politics, Training, 26(5), pp.48-54. The work focuses largely on what is referred to as hazy communications and how those seeking legitimate power are segregated from decision-making authority by aggressive political actors. Terrell describes how trust is developed or deconstructed when communications and transparency are closed by aggressive politicians. Read More