Power, Politics, and Negotiation

Q.1 How leaders influence power over their followers?

Power can simply be defined as the ability to influence the others. The leaders of the organizations hold power and the authority and hence can influence that power over their followers. There may be the difference between the political and business leaders regarding possessing power but on influencing their power on their followers is pretty much identical. Both the political and business leaders use encouragement and self-assessment to influence their power on their followers. Power has been described as a dirty thing in the research. It can be either influenced positively or negatively. In the history, the organizational leaders have used their power immorally and unethically as well.

There is five ways the leader's influence power on their followers. Firstly, the leaders possess the expert power. The leaders are the experts in their respective fields. They have more knowledge and experience than their followers. This gives them an ultimate edge over their followers. For example, the expert accountants influence on how the junior accountants go about their work. Similarly, the senior architects influence their junior workers on their work. This gives them the expert power to influence on them. The leaders also influence power on their followers with their position. In any organization, there is a hierarchal system. According to this system, the leader of the organization is often the CEO and there are some other positions that give power to the leader. A leader can have the power from his position that he can influence the others working in this organization. The leader having positional power can make the people working under his position work according to his directions. 

The leaders also influence their power on the followers through reward power. This gives them the potential to influence their followers’ action and behavior as it gives them control over the desired resources. For example, the resources in an organization are the salary benefits, capital or human resource. The leaders have the ability to provide the incentives to the workers. In this way, the leaders develop and influence their power on the workers by offering them rewards. This makes the followers work best under the influence of the reward power of the leaders. This enables the leaders to use their reward power to get the maximum from his workers. It is a powerful force that can drive the workers and motivate them as well. This power of the leader can offer encouragement and motivation through rewards.

Coercion is another potential of the leaders to influence power on the followers. By using this power, they perform sanctions and other negative actions. It can also be regarded as the product of fear or loss. The leaders often influence their power on the followers by this product of loss and fear. As leaders of the organization have the authority to terminate anyone at any time from the organization. With the fear of losing the job the workers are influenced by the leaders through their coercive power. Coercion is never called as bad; rather it is instrumental as it enables the leader to acquire the better outcome from the follower. This also enables the leader to make the employees adhere to the standard and policies of the organization. For example, an engineer works more than usual hours unpaid just because their leaders are reviewing their performance. Leaders also influence their power on the followers through the personal relationships. This influence works because of the quality of the bond which is a product of affiliation and trust. Hence, these are the ways the leaders can influence power on their followers.

Q. 2 How the leaders adopt political behavior and political skills and how these political skills are used by them in their leadership?

Organizational politics is a concept that many are familiar with. There are certain political skills that the organizational leaders establish and use these skills for the administration of the organization. It is argued by several research studies’ outcomes that the organizational politics, political behavior, and political skills can lead to a positive change in the organization. Political skills are identified by the social perceptiveness and the ability that the leaders have to adjust the behaviors at the organization. Political skills can be considered as the characteristics, traits, and qualities. Political skills can be adopted by learning, or these can be innate.

The political skills are designed to focus on the interactions at the workplace. Many people argue that political skills have a negative impact on the workplace environment. However, many studies have derived that organizational politics is necessary to promote the social interactions at the organization. The political behavior refers to the skills of a leader to maximize and leverage the working relationships. The political behavior can also be called the ability to influence the others. It is very much associated with the power. Political skills are used by the leaders for building trust. It gives them the ability to understand others. The successful leaders always develop and use their political skills.

Considering the general politics, we think of political skills as the good administrative and leading skills. Similar is the case with the organizational politics where the leaders are required to administer their organization and run it an effective manner. Administration of an organization involves managing the business along with managing the behavior of the employees. So, the organizational leaders for the better administration of the organization develop and use the political skills. They use them to build the trust within the organization, build relationships with the followers and run the other organizational operations effectively. So, it becomes necessary to adopt the political behavior at the organization. Also, the political skills develop confidence in the leader. Leaders also use their political skills to establish the convincing power to convince the employees to agree on his decisions. This is the mixture of trust and confidence that the employees are convinced and believes that the decision is favorable for them and the organization.

Political skills are both innate and acquired. The capable people learn the skills from other leaders whom they have seen or worked under. The employees often learn from their leaders and use them when they come to that position. It is easier for the people with outgoing personalities, but the people can also learn political skills from their personal experience. However, the people can also be taught through training and executive coaching, etc. There are a few skills it takes to be a politically adept leader. The first thing that a leader needs is social astuteness which is the ability of a leader to comprehend what is being done around and observe these circumstances quickly.

Similarly, the political skills include interpersonal influence. It is the ability of the leaders to have a convincing personality and adopting a pleasant style for the followers. The political behavior also requires networking ability. This is the ability to develop the strong contacts and relationships. Finally, the politically skilled leaders need to have the ability to convey the impression of sincerity. The true leaders are truly sincere most of the times. However, there are also people whose sincerity is not genuine all the time.

Q. 3 What is the role of negotiations and what are the expected outcomes of negotiation?

Negotiation is one of the essential ingredients for getting ahead in the workplace. Negotiation is the discussion among the people to figure out an alternative that considers the interest of all, however, nobody suffers any loss through negotiation. Negotiation is the process that involves the benefits of both sides and the minimum loss for both parties. Negotiation is mostly the win-win procedure in which the solution presents benefits to everyone. As far as the organizations are concerned, negotiation is quite crucial to resolving and avoids conflict and enhance the relations between the employees. The organizational leaders often consider negotiation to resolve the issues between the employees and build strong relationships among them.

    The role of negotiation starts from the day an employee is selected to work for the company. The negotiation starts with the salary where the organizations and the employees negotiate for the salary. The employee makes sure that he gets the desired salary and tries to get stick over it. However, he never agrees on anything less than his previous salary or the salary which does not meet his expenses if he has not worked before. Similarly, the organization looks to make the employee agree on the lowest possible salary. This is because the organizations look to derive as many benefits as they can because of the financial purposes. This way they negotiate with the employee, but they never offer the salary which is too low or less than their previous salary to make sure that he agrees.

    The negotiation discussions are important. As discussed above if negotiation does not take place both the employer and employee would never agree to a specific amount of salary. This will raise a conflict, and as a result, no positive outcome will be derived. The outcome of the negotiation as discussed above is always positive one and both sides are benefitted. For a positive outcome, the negotiation styles matter as well. There is a style of discussion and negotiation that convince the people to agree upon something. However, considering the benefits of both is necessary. If the other party gets far less than desired, the negotiation is failed as the party would not agree. This also does not mean that you should offer too high that ends up creating a problem for you. For example, for making an individual join your organization, you offer a too high salary that will lessen your profit.

The negotiation is also significant while dealing with the vendors. Any organization needs money to take care of its employees and survive the business. Even a single penny may help the organization later. The business leader should also be a good negotiator while dealing with the external parties. Suppliers are also the ones that require negotiation. The organization should better negotiate with the suppliers during their dealing. When dealing with the suppliers and external parties, the organizational leaders should quote the minimum price and end up setting the price that is beneficiary for the company.

Negotiation is the process that must be learned. The leaders should significantly learn negotiations at the workplace. In the case of any conflict among the employees or the organization, the leader of the organization should step up and negotiate with the employees to resolve the conflict in such a way that both the employees agree on the decision. Negotiation is a skill that everyone does not possess, but successful people in the organizations always tend to negotiate well in their maters. Hence, negotiation plays an important role in organizations and derives positive outcomes.