Chapter 5: INFLUENCING: POWER, POLITICS, NETWORKING, AND

NEGOTIATION
Power is the leader’s potential influence over followers. Power skills can be improved through
studying and practicing. Two main sources of power discussed here are position power and
personal power. Position power means that the position status can naturally give you power, and
leaders and managers depend upon it to complete the tasks. Personal power is created inside
leaders when they behave toward followers. Although a follower can have personal power, a
leader has both position power and personal power.
French and Raven listed out five types of power and two remaining types (connection and
information) were added later. Firstly, legitimate power is position power given to a person by
the organization. It is used in most day-to-day workplace and combined with the consultation
influencing tactic as participative management to empower employees. Plus, rational persuasion
influencing tactic helps people to improve action, ingratiation influencing tactic encourages
others by complementing and asking them what you want. Secondly, reward power is the
potential to influence others by offering something valuable to them. Exchange influencing tactic
suggests leaders to reward anything in order to accomplish objective. Thirdly, coercive power
wants others’ compliance through punishment and withdrawing rewards. But it should be used in
suitable situation and minimized. Fourthly, referent power describes the relationship with others
and is often utilized by charismatic leaders or whom with weak position power. Fifthly, expert
power is evolved from users’ skill and knowledge. Being an expert helps a person have priority
power whoever he is. Sixthly, information power is the user's information that is expected by
others. Managers or employees can have information and are in a position of authority.
Seventhly, connection power is determined by the user's relationships to powerful individuals.
Politics may also take the shape of connection power. When using a coalition influencing tactic,
you enlist the support of powerful individuals to persuade others to support your goal.
The nine influencing tactics mentioned above can be used in organizational politics. Politics is
the pursuit and exercise of power. While money is a medium of exchange (tangible currency) in
economy, social politics is a medium of exchange (political behavior) in organization.
Networking is the first political behavior. Building connections for socializing and political
purposes is the activity of networking. Reach out to create a dependable network of connections
to become successful managers! Secondly, utilizing reciprocity entails forging commitments and
forming partnerships to achieve goals. Take note of the reciprocity with which the exchange
influencing tactic is applied to give then earn. Using co-optation is a political strategy for
creating alliances. Next, coalitions are developed for achieving a specific objective. Co-optation
is the process of persuading someone to join your coalition rather than to oppose it because you
need their support.
There are four main steps to develop political skills. People should understand the
organizational culture and who are power players. Then, they should develop good working
relationships, especially with upper managers. To achieve this, they must repair themselves, do
more than what is required, deliver bad news etc. Furthermore, people should be loyal, honest
team players because individuals need the support of their groups. Finally, people should try to
gain recognition by performing well to impress their upper levels.
Networking is a crucial component in your career. Your level of networking shows how much
help you receive from a community support system. Networking process includes 6 steps. (1)
Perform a self-assessment and set goals. Self-assessment means to define your skills,
competencies, and knowledge. Then you translate them to accomplishments, tie your
accomplishments to the job interview, and set networking goals. (2) Create your one-minute
self-sell. The one-minute self-sell is a networking opening statement that briefly describes your
background and professional goals while also presenting a question. This includes 3 parts
(history, plans, question to encourage two-way communication). (3) Develop your network. You
should begin with who you know, and next try to connect with who you don’t know. A tip is to
remember people by name to impress others. (4) Conduct networking interviews. The steps of
the interview are to establish rapport, to deliver your one-minute self-sell, to ask prepared
questions, to get additional contacts for your network, to ask your contacts how you might help
them, to follow up with a thank-you note and status report. (5) Maintain your network. You
should maintain contacts with someone who was helpful in finding a job. (6) Social networking
at work. But you must make sure of the policy on social media of the company and follow the
rules.
Negotiation helps everyone to have a better outcome. 2 or more parties will negotiate until all
getting a good deal and coming to an agreement. In the negotiation process, influencing tactics,
power, and politics are utilized. (1) Plan. 4 steps to plan are to research other parties, to set
objectives, to try to develop options and trade-offs, to anticipate questions and objections, and
prepare answer. (2) Negotiations. 4 steps to negotiate are to develop rapport and focus on
obstacles, not the person, to let the other party make the first offer, to listen and ask questions to
focus on meeting the others’ needs. (3) Postponement. If the opposite party wants to postpone,
you may create urgency. However, honesty is sometimes better than overusing urgency. If it is
your side who postpones, the other may create currency. But you should not hurry to make a deal
before asking for advice. (4) Agreement. It is usual to follow up on an agreement with a letter of
appreciation that reaffirms the agreement to make sure they do not change their minds. (5) No
agreement. If there is no agreement, evaluate the issue and try to figure out what went wrong so
that things may be done better in the future.
Leaders and followers may both utilize power, politics, networking, and negotiation as
techniques of influencing. Keep in mind that being ethical pays off while influencing. When
deploying to further organizational and member goals, as well as to obtain desired outcomes,
power is moral (socialized power). When used for self-interest and to control others at their
expense, power is immoral (personalized power).