Power in Organisations

Power in Organisations

Power has been researched for a long time in a variety of situations. Even, in animal behavior the Lion is “The king of the jungle”, that power has been derived from its characteristics and potential. Power, also is reflected in organisations and working environments.

Personally, I think that power is closely related to decision making capacity. People exert power over others, but also power is exerted over them. According to how you use power, you can influence others behaviour.

I completed “Rating a Manager Power” assessment quiz on my working experience in companies which have an organizational structure defined, the score was 71. It shows my manager used “moderate power”. I agree with this result because in these companies the power and the ability of decision making of employees, including managers, are limited by the structural organizational levels and polices developed in advance by companies.

There are diverse concepts of Power; specifically I want to focus on some sources of power applied in working environments as Personal Power and Position Power. Both of them are related to the idea of “Someone exert power over others, but also power is exerted over him/her” because when an employee works, he or she can use power on others, thus developing potential influence derived from his or her personal characteristics “Personal Power” (Yukl, 2006). Besides, that employee has a higher person who exerts power from above on him or her.

On the other hand, “Position Power” is related to the capacity of decision making and influence that one employee has from the Organisation, according to his or her level of authority in front of others (Yukl, 2006). I could identify that through my working experience I have developed sources of power. For example, one type of Position Power is Reward Power. According to Dubrin, Dalglish and Miller (2006) it involves the leader making a promise to give a person under his/her control a reward for...