A511.3.3.RB_ Manglona, Matthew-Napu_ Power and Influence

A511.3.3.RB_ Manglona, Matthew-Napu_ Power and Influence

From my personal knowledge of power and influence is the ability to maintain control and inspire someone or a group of people to accomplish a task. From the book, I learned that Power, Authority, and Influence go hand in hand and complement each other. In the readings, I realized that Personal power and Position power is a reference that I can use to accomplish what I believe is crucial to be successful in the realm of Power and Influence in an organization, in other words, being balanced. Position Power “derives from legitimate authority, control over resources and rewards, over punishments, information, and control over the physical work environment” whereas Personal Power “includes potential influence derived from task expertise, and potential influence based on friendship and loyalty” (Yukl, 2013). With the combination of this concept I believe you are not restricted to being one dimensional type of leader but rather the ability to be a generalist, or a person whose knowledge and skills are applied to a field as a whole or to a variety of different fields and always being able to adapt to changes.

The type of power that I possess in my organization as an officer in the Army is “Loyalty”, where I remain loyal to my subordinates and organization more than myself. The power source for this is “Referent Power”. I am able to inspire those around me and able to ensure their needs are met before mine. “Loyal dissent does not undermine our leaders; its purpose is to support them and help them make better decisions. Therefore, a leader may need to invest valuable time to teach his or her subordinates how to properly and productively dissent in the unit” (Craig, T. B.2014). I believe that this tactic is a way to ensure the loyalty in my subordinates where I give them power and influence, because they may have a more viable solution to a problem. I use this type of power on a daily basis asking them for recommendations to a problem, I treat them as equals, show them I am a human being, and allow myself to be approachable.

I believe that this is an ability for me to lead because I can get the trust and loyalty from my subordinates because “subordinates who enjoy high quality leader-member exchange with their leader enjoy more freedom in performing their work, are usually given better job assignments and more support, have more opportunities to work with the leader and experience more trust in the relationship” (Othman, R., Ee, F. F., & Shi, N. L.2010).

“We define dysfunctional leader-member exchange as a condition where the high quality of exchange between a leader and certain member/s is perceived by others in the work group as an inequity” (Othman, R., Ee, F. F., & Shi, N. L.2010). My leadership style does not apply to this dysfunction. However in my workplace this does occur. I see certain leaders give their “followers” better treatment or a “slap on the wrist” type punishment. I have seen in a case where a soldier was loyal to a leader and the LMX was in high quality. The soldier failed a Urinalysis Test, when other soldiers are immediately discharged, this soldier was put in reduction of rank. I saw such a bias in this decision which to me was quite disappointing.

 

 

 

 

References

Craig, T. B. (2014). Leveraging the power of loyal dissent in the U.S. army. Military Review, 94(6), 97.

Othman, R., Ee, F. F., & Shi, N. L. (2010). Understanding dysfunctional leader-member exchange: antecedents and outcomes Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 31 (4), 337-350.

Yukl, G. (2013). Leadership in organizations (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.