When talking about power, we may think of words such as privilege, influence, control, coercion or authority. But power is different from the above words. Power is the ability to use the above words, not the ability to actually use them. Power is a symbol of the possible use of coercive force in the social environment, and the power to support the use is great.
More researchers have their own definitions of power. For example, Dahl thinks: "The power of A to B lies in the extent that A can make B do what he has to do"; Miller and Butler believe that "power can be simply expressed as a person's ability to control others"; Etzioni believes that "strength is the ability to resist some or all obstacles in the face of opposing forces"; Price believes that "the essence of power lies in the ability to influence others' behavior".
Looking at the above discussion, gathering the reality of enterprise management, when we talk about the power in enterprise management, we should refer to "the ability of people in different positions in the enterprise to control and influence the behavior of their members."
For example, the manager of the sales department of an enterprise has the power to appoint, remove, examine and punish the sales staff under his command, and regulate their behavior in order to achieve the assessment goal of the sales department; But for production, logistics, finance and other departments at the same level, it is a cooperative relationship.
Power base in management
The key to deciding how to exercise more power is the manager's understanding of the power resources or foundation.
According to Ferenczy and Raven, the power base is defined as the source or root of power exerted by one party on the other. They listed five power bases: reward right, compulsory right, legal right, guidance right and reference right.
Reward right
It is our motivation in modern management, or positive motivation, such as the right to provide bonuses, salary increases, promotions, praise, ideal work arrangements and anything else that is pleasant.
Reward right is to guide subordinate members to develop in the direction expected by managers. In corporate culture or management regulations, companies express the wishes of managers explicitly or implicitly. When the reward right coincides with the personal goals of subordinates, it can produce the power of "pulling" and implement our ability to influence subordinates.
However, if our reward right is lower than our subordinates' expectations, or our subordinates doubt whether the reward is implemented or executed, or the reward right is not of interest to our subordinates, then our influence is likely to fail.
Compulsory force
In order to ensure the minimum influence of managers, in terms of power, mandatory power is needed to ensure that subordinates must obey the influence of managers. This is a kind of "push" force, which is contrary to the right to reward. It is embodied in the right to deduct wages and bonuses, demote, criticize, assign poor jobs, and even dismiss.
The use of coercive power depends on the hierarchy of the organization. If there is no violation of external laws and other constraints, managers with strong management level can at least dominate subordinate members in the short term.
It should be pointed out that in a specific organization, sometimes the superior team may implement the right to resist this compulsion to safeguard the interests of the small team. Such as technical team and operation team.
Legitimate right
This power comes from the internal regulations of the enterprise, which stipulate that managers have the right to influence those members, and these members have the obligation to accept this influence. It also refers to the legal and formal power inherent in leadership positions in an organization.
In cross-organizational systems, especially in large enterprises, legitimacy is very important to ensure the implementation of matrix management. Moreover, in large enterprises, legitimacy is very common and can be accepted by convention. In fact, without this power organization, the operation will be very difficult. In every link of the instruction, the instruction can only be executed if the executing agency recognizes the legal rights of the superior and has the obligation to accept this influence.
Only within the scope of legal rights can we exercise power and exert influence. If it is outside the scope of power coverage, we need to adopt other management methods besides power to exert our influence. If we need to exert influence on some organizations or members, we need to give these organizations or members legal rights by modifying internal regulations, authorizing and changing organizational structure.
Guiding right
Guiding power, sometimes called expert power, comes from some specific fields. The power generated by leaders or members with certain professional knowledge and special skills has won the respect and obedience of colleagues and subordinates.
Guiding power is very common in enterprise operation. Sometimes this knowledge or skill is transformed into a business process, and the people at the secondary joint point have to be influenced by the people at the primary control point. The personnel at the main control point shall regularly and continuously guide and control the personnel at the secondary nodes.
The right of guidance is particularly important for the operation of the process, and the affected personnel are willing to accept the guidance of knowledge and skills. Guiding power is also similar to coaching leadership in modern management, which plays a positive role in helping subordinates grow up and influencing subordinates to accomplish corporate goals in an orderly manner.
Reference right
Also known as charisma, a leader's quality, charisma, experience, background or work style. Have an influence on other members and gain recognition and admiration.
Followers consciously accept the influence of leaders because of their inspiration or reference. This constitutes the basis of power. However, within the enterprise, the right of appeal and other power bases are mixed together, and sometimes it is impossible to distinguish clearly, while outside the enterprise, the rights involving religion and politics are even more watertight.
The Application of Power in Enterprise Management
From the perspective of enterprise managers, it is necessary to use power to influence the behavior of subordinates to help enterprises achieve their goals. Therefore, in order to realize the internal management of enterprises, managers must have an available power base.
There are two questions here: 1. What power bases can be used? 2. How to use it.
Determine the feasible power supply basis
The power that the general manager can exercise in a given time is easy to identify, and it is a function of enterprise organization, rules, appointment and removal, process and other factors.
Organizationally, there is a hierarchical system, in which superior managers can exert influence on subordinates, and subordinate organizations are obliged to issue instructions from superior organizations. Of course, in the organization, the superior organization may have a certain scope of power, and the general superior organization cannot influence the subordinate organization outside its own scope of power.
In terms of rules, the concern between organizations provides a system stipulated by contract, which provides certain legal power for managers' behavior. In enterprises with strict management, it is a dereliction of duty not to act according to regulations. In enterprises with lax management or lack of rules and regulations, it is essentially impossible to provide the legal power basis for management.
The power base is always changing, and changes in the external environment will cause changes in the power base. Therefore, managers should understand their power base with a dynamic vision.
In some cases, it may be difficult to determine the power base that can be used. In most cases, according to the scale and organizational structure of the enterprise and the relationship between departments, a careful evaluation of the basic management relationship will reveal the available power base. For example, in the process, the knowledge and skills in the early stage of the process play an important guiding role, resulting in the right of guidance, but in the later stage of the process, this guiding role is weakened, so the basis of the right of guidance no longer exists.
Select and use the appropriate power base.
In enterprise management, it is more difficult and complicated for managers to use what kind of power base to implement power than before.
For example, if power forces subordinate members to take some involuntary action through heavy pressure. Undoubtedly, this kind of power use will worsen the relationship between all aspects in management. In fact, power should be used to strengthen the relationship between enterprise members.
In many power studies, we agree that the use of power can be divided into compulsory power use and non-compulsory power use. The use of mandatory power will have an impact on the internal conflicts of enterprises, while the use of non-mandatory power (reward right, legal right, reference right and guidance right) tends to reduce the internal conflicts of enterprises.
In addition, corporate culture, social environment and other factors affect the effect of the use of power. The role of compulsory power in an immature enterprise is different from that in a mature enterprise. Therefore, there is no clear principle for power management. Here we recommend several principled inferences:
1. In order to influence subordinates, some form of power must be used.
2. The influence of various powers on the behavior of subordinates may be determined by specific conditions. With the different implementation environment of power such as enterprise organization, stage and purpose, the effectiveness of various powers will also change.
3. The implementation of power and how to use it will affect the efficiency and conflict within the enterprise, and also affect employees' satisfaction with the enterprise.
4. The use of coercive force will promote conflict and produce a high degree of dissatisfaction more than the use of other powers.
5. The use of coercive force will weaken the stability and development of management, so that the coerced party needs external support (such as government labor protection departments) to weaken the possibility of increasing coercive force.
Although the above principle is not very accurate, it does provide theoretical guidance for us to use the power base in enterprise management to some extent. If these instructions can be combined with good management judgment, it may have real value in managing enterprises.