Power and Politics in the Workplace
Power and Politics in the Workplace or elsewhere, refers to the Organizational politics defined. Organizational politics involves ways which workers have self-serving and devious actions with the objective of promoting their self-welfares at the expense of others, and some times even organizational goals as well.
Organizational politics in an organization displays itself via the struggle for properties, individual encounters, struggle for and opposition for power and control and strategic effect executed by persons and groups to achieve power. (Ferris & Kacmar 1992). Basically, organizational politics entail the actions that take place in organizations, are informal and consist of actions that are intended. These actions are designed to improve or protect the careers of workers in the specific organization. Politics is a precise feature of the administrative system in organizations that influences all aspects of corporate existence.
However, there are different types of power and politics in workplaces, some are positive and some are positive to the people around the organization (Kacmar 2000). Positive Types of Power Positive power in an organization entails any type of actions that encourages productivity. This includes a setting whereby the leaders give the personnel the power to come up with decisions, rewarding workers that have been competent and have performed well and assigning staffs also carry out their duties in the workplace well enough to manage and organize other personnel. Positive power enhances and improves the self-confidence of the members of staff; it also stimulates them to work harder. Positive power effects in a situation whereby the people that are at the top positions attain power via employee esteem and communication instead of forced means of management. One of the most vital aspects about this type of power is that it encourages employee maintenance rates due to the fact that they have the power to give out their concerns (Robbins et al 2008).
Negative Types of Power This type of power happens in cases whereby leaders in a workplace fail to respect their employees. Negative power in a leader encourages employees to work by being intimated them with threats such as loss of jobs and other penalties or displaying nepotism to particular personnel and failing to acknowledge the hard work of the personnel. This type of power leads to poor quality of work in the organization and also results to greater revenue rates in the workplace (Ferris & Kacmar1992). Positive Workplace Politics In a workplace, staffs that professionally steer the politics of a workplace, are basically more industrious than those who are not concerned. As a way of encouraging productivity in an organization, the management ought to come up with a political philosophy that is less complex for workers to comprehend and appreciate. Forming policies that are clear and chains of command enables the personnel to understand the reason and the benefits of producing quality work.
Positive Workplace Politics is creation of an environment that focuses on teamwork and equality in management. Negative Workplace Politics Workplaces that adapt working environments that have negative politics do not do well because there is always a conflict. If workers are stimulated to take part in fraudulent or disreputable conduct to get at the top and discrimination outplays, the value f work, a workplace is affected by decreased output and complex turnover rates. As a result, a workplace with no or with poor policies and chains of command results to personnel, putting more effort with no positive results, whereas the problem is at the management level and not with the workers (Ferris & Kacmar1992). General effects of Politics and Power on Organization and Employees: 1. Decrease in General Output Productivity Politics in workplaces pulls down the productivity of a person and ultimately affect the production of the business.
On the basis of corporate reflections, persons that partake in politics at the workstation, pay less devotion to their responsibilities due to the fact that these people are more concerned in backbiting activities, spending most of their work times analyzing and evaluating their workmates or even their superiors. Finally, as a result of politics, workers do not reach their targets in the required time (Robert 2007). 2. Affects Concentration It is hard for people to concentrate in a workplace if staff are involved in organization politics. This is because they are more concerned in making a fuss of the other workers image to the seniors or to the other workmates. This leads to demotivation of the victims.
A worker that is involved in politics is likely to make more errors as he is more focused on the faults of others (Robert 2007).3. Spoils the Ambience Politics in workplaces results to undesirable working condition; it plunders the interactions between workmates due to the fact that the person who leads in active politics at the business is unpopular. 4. The Attitude of the personnel is alternated as even the hard-working ones are affected and as a result they tend to lose concentration and interest in their work. Regardless of how much hard work a worker dedicates in a politically driven workplace, it passes without being seen (Robert 2007).
Relationship between Leadership, Power and Politics Organizational leadership takes place in the setting of groups, whereby employees are influenced by their senior staff to guarantee their pledge and controlled participation towards programmed results. In workplaces, considerations are necessary so as to come up with the best of personnel thoughts. Assessing the merits and demerits of an idea each time benefits in the long run. Employees taking part in politics always search for a chance to spoil the image of their workmates. This leads to a situation whereby the senior staff may get a wrong interpretation of what is in reality going on in the organization (French & Bell 1990). Understanding of organizations’ political systems Understanding the political systems in organizations is vital for management and control qualities as they enable a good leader to go through the organization in the direction its goals.
Internally developed leaders will have a benefit of awareness of overall political circumstances that conquer in the corporation. Externally developed leaders ought to dedicate more efforts in learning and comprehending the present organizational politics, via extreme surveillance and dedicated collaboration with diverse groups of people at the workplace. Several signs accessible for leaders to consider include the political environment, it thee overall work satisfaction levels, receptiveness to pioneering ideas, and effectiveness of decision-creating systems and swiftness of putting into practice of the decisions. Understanding is the main factor for leaders to achieve and overpower organizational politics in addition to improving their personal leadership reliability (French & Bell 1990). Leveraging political understanding for benefit Leaders practice political influence accessible to them in different circumstances so as to support the organizational welfares. After the understanding of organizational politics, leaders might practice political influence accessible to them in different conditions in order to encourage the interests of the organizational.
Leaders abuse organizational politics even to progress to management positions as prospective leaders with appropriate political direction (Kacmar 2000). Promoting progressive culture, not politicsUnquestionably, leaders are the foundation of power, influence and therefore politics in an organization. As individuals have requirements and leaders have the power to satisfy these requirements, those who accomplish the requirements hold the prospective power. Leaders are likely to have an unlimited degree of overpower in political climate that has an undesirable impact on the attitudes of the staff in a workplace and organization consequences by bringing individual prerequisites with the organizational goals. Leaders ought to realize that organizational politics is a task of culture of faith in the workplace that is developed via values of justice and transparency. Transparency, fairness in processes and courses is important in forming an environment whereby organizational politics are dormant and progressive culture is created, it offers reputation to organizational objectives via the deliberate participation of workers.
Therefore, leaders should motivate workers via the creation and an organizational setting that has workers that are free to express their needs and thoughts (Gilley 2002). In a school setting, the instructors are supposed to create a good learning environment whereby there is no offsets of students, a climate whereby the students are free to present their grievances to their instructor. Politics in the classroom setting results to conflict between the students, the instructor and the management. Conclusion The organization of the workplaces ought to network their human resource in the direction of ensuring that politics in their workplaces do not turn out to be negative. Organizations specialists, like managerial psychologists, must be consulted in order to distinguish and deal with the troubles of their organization.
For that reason, organizations understand the workers needs and strive for the improvement of the organization setting. It might also recommend that the organization need to achieve progress curriculum once in a while for their administrators to comprehend the political setting and facilitate them to take necessary actions. Each and every personnel should take place in the setting of the workplace and organization must share achievement with their workers at the junior level. Other recommendations include such practices for the employees for improving the devotion of the organization among staffs. The organization needs to encourage the staff to work hard, efficiently and in effective manner for achievement of the best workplace satisfaction. Finally, organization needs to organize orientations for fresh workers; this assists them in understanding their tasks.
