POWER AUTHORITY AND INFLUENCE - Essay Example

This paper describes my own personal methods or ways through which I gain power in the workplace. Power is the aptitude to control people. Authority is the privilege to influence, control, and transform other people. To elucidate how I gain power and influence in the work place, it is important to describe French and Raven model of power and influence. These two individuals postulated an all inclusive form of collective and shared authority. In doing so, they proposed and recommended various categories of authority.

These categories include intimidation, incentive, valid, specialist, referent, as well as informational. People in positions of leadership can achieve power and influence through corporeal and oral intimidations. Power through intimidation can either be applied to a single entity or a group of people (Houser, Anna & Domokos-Cheng, 2004). There are instances I have used intimidation to manipulate and control some of my juniors in the workplace. Those in positions of leadership will bear me witness that some intimidating actions applied to some employees are not planned.

There are those employees who will take any chance and misconstrue everything to make you look bad to your bosses. Since I am human and human beings often make mistakes, I do not tolerate any of my juniors reporting me to my immediate boss as this would affect my chances of ever getting a promotion or a pay rise. I deal with these individuals appropriately and warn them of dire consequences if they ever report me to my boss. According to French and Raven theory, achieving power and influence through incentives is practiced in many organizations all over the world.

Individuals who are involved in making decisions regarding incentives have all the power and influence in the workplace. Valid power and influence is achieved on the basis of how the individual in management position is expected to behave by the public. In referent power, people are known to respect and recognize the authority of individuals that they are capable of forming relationships or associations with. Informational power depends on the status of an individual as some individuals are considered to be more knowledgeable than others (Houser, Anna & Domokos-Cheng, 2004).

I can relate to French and Raven model in the ways or manners in which I gain power and influence in my workplace. Individuals in management as illustrated by the French and Raven model are expected by the society to act or behave in certain ways. Trust is a virtue. I have learnt the importance of building trust in the workplace. For an individual to be powerful and influential, both his/her workmates and bosses as well must have faith and conviction towards him/her. Through allowing my juniors to plan their duties to fit their personal needs and requirements as long as it is within the organizational objectives and guidelines has enable them to trust and respect me.

I have also ensured that I always achieve my projected goals and objectives in whatever I do. Through this, I have gained influence and power within the workplace as I am considered one of the best performers. Furthermore, I involve myself in doing research on the past, current, and future operations of my organization. Doing so has been of significance as I have been able to identify areas of weaknesses within the organization and subsequently identified novel avenues through which I can mitigate or alleviate hurdles in organizational performance.