Leadership, Power, and Politics

Abstract

This article examines the link between leadership, power, and politics, as well as successful organizational change. Politics, power, and leadership play a significant role in managing the organization process and effects necessary changes through persuasion. The results of cases in the organization indicate that power, politics, and leadership, aims at achieving a vision, and plays a significant role in expressing a relationship between successful organizational changes.

Keywords: Politics. Leadership, Power, organization, change

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Role of Leadership, Power, and Politics in Organization

Introduction

Leadership, power, and politics, are the fundamental aspects of life in any organization, and it is highly unlikely that any organization can function without them. Most members of an organization such as social workers, engineers, salesperson, union members, managers, and supervisors, engage in activities intended to influence other members of the organization hence every employee is subject to the social influence of others. Nonetheless, some influence process is covert and un-intentional, thus, there is the need for recognizing the possibilities of unintentional control. Moreover, a continuous need for organizational change, demands that the organization’s competent leadership must understand and analyze the current business needs. Therefore, this study seeks to explore the link between leadership, power, and politics, and successful organizational change.

Background

According to Collins, Abbott & Richards (2011), each person has a future goal which can help improve their future. These goals include the desire for power to persuade and influence others. However, dreams are insufficient, and the targets can only work if the top leadership of an organization takes practical steps that request diverse skills, talent, and knowledge to become successful. All organizations must take reasonable steps, to achieve long term sustainability and success.

Organizations must adopt, implement and accept changes in their business operations, to match the customer preference, future concerns, technologies, and the changing trends. Ricketts & Ricketts (2010), claims that organizational change is a demand of time to remain relevant in business. Similarly, Chitale (2013) argues that changes in the organization are vital for long term survival and success of an institution. Moreover, Chitale claims that there are chances that organizations may lose their reputation if they fail to prepare themselves for specific changes in its leadership power, and political structure, hence change is necessary for long-term success in an organization.

According to Chitale (2013), leadership, power, and politics, is a vital tool used to address critical issues of change, in an organization, and that an effective leader can effect fundamental changes in an institution. The knowledge about the implication, the importance of change, and acknowledging that the changes are necessary for success, plays a significant role in the implementation of the changes required for the process. Moreover, competent leadership, power, and politics are necessary to formulate, understand and implement suitable organizational changes, which is the focus of this study.

The role of leadership, politics, and power, can be examined by its capacity to solve numerous issues in the organization. The ability to solve problems is attributes which a leader must have, to effect changes in the organization. However, there are gaps in the link between a successful organizational change, and the features of leadership, power, and politics that influence these changes (Chitale, 2013).

Body of Report

According to Porter, Angle & Allen (2003), leadership, power, and politics, are aspects which are closely intertwined because they can be utilized as agents of change, and represents an exciting aspect of the organizational science. Power refers to the exercise of influence over others, while leadership is the ability to persuade and influence other people towards pursuing a specific goal. The importance of leadership, power, and politics is seen in the familiarity that employees have with political behavior and influence in their workplace. Leadership has a significant impact on the organization’s performance and is an essential antecedent of the employee’s performance which relates to the feeling of fairness, and justice in the workplace.

According to Ferris & Treadway (2012), power, leadership, and politics are a unifying thread by which people rationalize and connect the history of humanity. Some traditional perspectives such as economic events, ideology, war, and religion, offers a crucial perspective about the evolution of society. However, understanding how the organization leaders and their followers use power is equally useful in helping the public determine how the organization leadership, will relate to each other. The view of organizations leadership in terms of power is central both of who and what we are as individuals and as group members. Power is a vital part of the quest of private goals, which offers individuals the chance to place themselves in the collective setting, in a specific relationship with others. Power, politics, and leadership, does much in explaining characters of exceptional people, and it is the dominant role in social organization. Moreover, it is the extra element of interpersonal relationship which allows managers of organizations to secure their willing compliance which causes or prevents change that affects policies and produces the intended effects.

According to Ferris & Treadway (2012), Power, leadership, and politics allow managers and chief executive officers in various organizations to sway others to behave in a desired way. In an interpersonal relationship, leadership, politics, and power, induces people into joy and laughter, or towards understanding and respecting the values and ideas of other employees. Contrarily, the organization’s power, political, and leadership are central to man’s concern for an organization’s administration because they guide and regulate the relationship between employees aimed at accomplishing a specific task.

Childers (2012), claims that individuals appointed to head organizations, do not automatically become powerful leaders, but their source of power is of most significance because they relate to the core function of leadership, which is premised on influencing the employees to do things which they might not agree to do, in pursuit of longer organizational interests. Organization’s politics, leadership, and power are characterized by the manager’s capability to safeguard the profits of the institution through understanding the desires of the workers, and the goals of the company, and integrate them to achieve a common goal. Moreover, they help the organization members to work as a team in addressing the organizational challenges in a worthy way. In the current era of increased customers, demand and the rapid change on business trend, the role of political power and leadership is required to predict the essential changes and create the necessary commitment to understand and adopt the changes. The actions by leadership, power and political structure are critical for the survival and the effectiveness of the organization.

The profitable goals of an organization can only be accomplished through the use of a planned business procedure, and decisive leadership, power, and political role, therefore politics, power, and leadership involve leading the team. If the organization’s leadership lacks vision, then the organization will lack progress. There are some practical, proven leadership, power and politics competencies, which affects the performance of an organization. The competencies include self-knowledge and interpersonal skills concerned with any specific business of an organization. The link between human and dreams is as old as a civilization because many people have dreams that focus on improving their organization. Leadership, power, and politics, are anchored on ideas and dreams and can turn the ideas into reality and dreams. Moreover, these aspects may make an organization to have an unwanted circumstance thus, there is the need of capable leadership power and political structure which leads a company towards the formulation of a desirable future (In Buono, In Caluwé & In Stoppelenburg, 2013).

Evaluation and Discussion

Currently, organizations have realized that survival in the age of global competition requires innovative leadership, politics, andstrategic powerc approaches. Organizations which requires excellence and sustainability in business needs to think about an innovative approach to develop their business strategies through turning their innovative concept into reality. The innovation of leadership, powe,  and politics, is the response to the future technology and market changes, of an organization in a right way, thus making the organization successful (In Buono, In Caluwé & In Stoppelenburg, 2013).

The innovative approach of leadership, power, and politics can contribute towards improving the growth of creative culture within an organization hence visionary leadership power and politics are required to sustain the organization. Visionary leadership power and politics plays a crucial role in motivating company employees to work using their maximum abilities, empowering the workers to maintain commitment to the organization’s vision, to achieve maximum output, and also support the organization in suiting its vision by providing the employees with a good atmosphere (In Buono, In Caluwé & In Stoppelenburg, 2013).

In the past, organizations utilized business strategies through considerations of their known factors. The leadership, political and focus of power were built on the creation and resource provision, which enables the organization’s activities to run smoothly. However, the trends have changed in the current organizations because of the change in technological circumstances. The change requires understanding and good political and powerful leadership which helps in getting the path of successful change (Buchanan & Badham, 2008).

The organizational changes can make its political, power and leadership structure capable of responding to the future economic and technological trends, and provide competition. The organizatio,nal political power and leadership play a central role in cultivating and nurturing and helping organizations work as a team to face the challenges and work worthily. However, strategic leadership is required in creating the necessary commitment and foretelling the advanced changes that team members of the organization can adopt (Buchanan & Badham, 2008).

 

Finding

Chitale (2013), argues that coordinating and initiating changes requires a developed political, leadership, and power skills, because any change process may face a certain level of resistance, and only effective political and powerful organization leadership can manage resistance and implement successful change. Recognizing, overcoming and addressing resistance is a lengthy process because employees may resist radical changes. However, Sigh (2009), suggests that a powerful leadership, is the power to implement changes, and manage resistance, and also make strategies that link the employees with the organization’s process.

The findings of the study are that vision is an important aspect which influences the political, power and leadership, and implements successful organizational change. The vision leads the company towards prosperous and a sustainable future thus promoting and cultivating the innovative culture by providing realistic ideas and creative culture.

Suggestion

The relative and limited literature has examined and identified the leadership, political and aspects of power, and also the managerial perspective criticalkey issues linked to the role of organizational changes. Moreover, Chitale (2013) suggests that there is little research linked to the appropriate skills of effective organizational leadership and therefore, there is the need to examine how the integration of other aspects like communication skills, may affect the organization’s performance when combined with power, polit, cs and leadership. Due to limited research in identifying specific organization change skills, the study also suggests the need for a managerial perspective on crucial skills that are linked to organization change.

Conclusion

Leadership, politics, and power are the aspects required for organizational change because it offers solution targeted towards managing and leading change initiatives. However, there are few pieces of literature which provide information about the specific variation of leadership, power and political skills required for a successful organizational change. The organizational changes are created by groups of enterprising people to fulfill the demands of society. The organizational changes based on the vision of power, polit, cs and leadership, and have a relatively close link with the improvement of an organization’s performance which contributes to innovation. However, the weakness in the application of political, power, and leadership is that it may be used at times to manipulate and exploit those employees who are of lower ranks.

Recommendation and Future Work

This study recommends further research on the production of future organizational leaders who have not only powpoliticscal and leadership abilities, but also visionary leaders, how these leaders may run the organization and their impact to these organizations.

 

References

Buchanan, D. A., & Badham, R. J. (2008). Power, politics, and organizational change: Winning the turf game.

Childers, E. S. (2012). College identity sagas: Investigating organizational identity preservation and diminishment at Lutheran colleges and universities. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications.

Chitale, A. K. (2013). Organizationbehaviorour. Place of publication not identified: Prentice-Hall of India.

Collins, D. J., Abbott, A., & Richards, H. (2011). Performance Psychology E-Book: A Practitioner’s Guide.

Ferris, G. R., & Treadway, D. C.  (2012). Politics in organizations: Theory and research considerations. Routledge.

In Buono, A. F., In Caluwé, L. ., & In Stoppelenburg, A. (2013). Exploring the professional identity of management consultants.

Porter, L. W., Angle, H. L., & Allen, R. W. (2003). Organizational influence processes. Armonk (N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe.

Ricketts, C., & Ricketts, J. (2010). Leadership: Personal development and career success. Nelson Education.

Sign, A. (2009). Organizational Power in Perspective. Retrieved from: https://ascelibrary.org/doi/full/10.1061/%28ASCE%29LM.1943-5630.0000018