Power

Power is the capacity of a person, team or organization to influence others. Influencing is the process of affecting others’ attitudes and behaviour to achieve an objective. Northhouse, (2013) stated that there are two major kinds of power –position and personal power. Position power is derived from top management. Personal power is derived from the follower based on leader’s behaviour. Position power is the assumed authority or influence a person holds over others by virtue of the title of his or her position. For example, power exercised in correlation with the perceived level of a position relative to others in the organization. Personal power is a source of influence and authority a person has over his or her followers. For instance, the influence capacity a leader gets from being seen by followers as knowledgeable, or likeable.

9 Influencing Tactics

According to Bauer and Erdogan (2009), there are nine commonly used influence tactics:

1.Inspirational appeals

2.Rational persuasion

3.Consultation

4.Ingratiation

5.Personal appeal

6.Exchange

7.Coalition tactics

8.Legitimating tactics

9.Pressure

There are three possible outcomes from influence attempts:

Resistance: occurs when the influence target does not wish to comply with the request and either passively or actively repels the influence attempt.

Compliance: occurs when the target does not necessarily want to obey, but they do.

Commitment: occurs when the target not only agrees to the request but also actively supports it as well.

Types of Power

There is seven Power in line with leadership

• Legal/Legitimate
• Reward
• Referent
• Expert
• Information/Resource
• Coercive/Punishment
• Connection

Politics

Politics is the process of gaining and using power. It is the fact of life in organizations either good or bad.

There are 3 common political behaviours:

• Networking

Networking on the job is the key to promote to higher management. Networking requires social skills. It is about building professional relationships and friendships. Somehow, it is difficult for women because not every time the “good old boy network” will work.

Networking is the most successful approach to find a job because 2/3 of all job are through word of mouth and informal referrals.          

• The Networking Process to Get Job

Perform A Self-Assessment and Set Goals is linked with the job accomplishments. Interviewee is encouraged to express the obtained accomplishment during job interview by setting networking goal. Create Your One-Minute Self-Sell should be including the history of professional experiences, plans, questions to stimulate conversation. On top of that, all the said works must be written and practices physically to gain the job. Develop Your Network is begun with people who are known and expand to unknown such as referrals and volunteer work. It can develop the ability to remember the names of people. Conduct Networking Interview. Maintain Your Network is not a job interview but using networking list to approach many interviews through reaching the goals. It can be informal or via telephone. After using the networking as preliminary work to get the job, a rapport should have been established.  It is suggested the candidate to deliver one-minute self-sell, prepare the answers for possible questions, get additional contacts for network, ask contacts to solve any inquiry, as well as follow-up by sending thank-you notes or giving status reports to referrals.

• Negotiation

What is negotiation?

Negotiation is a process when two or more parties which are in conflict (disagreement) working to reach an agreement. Negotiation is common in job searches, labour relations, and sales.

A negotiation should start with plan then if the parties involves consented to the plan will close the deal; otherwise no agreement made.

What is included in a negotiation process?

• Plan
• Negotiations
• Postponement
• Agreement
• Disagreement