by Charles Plant | Aug 1, 2013 | Leadership Development
Referent Power sounds like one of those made up terms used by people who want to seem more intelligent. (Is it working so far?) But it is a real source of power in the workplace.
I worked many years ago with a young woman who went out of her way to make people feel welcome and comfortable in the office. She was perpetually cheery, jocular and friendly. She went out of her way to remember birthdays, celebrate successes and turn the office into a family like environment.
She had Referent Power. But we didn’t call it that back in those days. She had what we called Likeability. Everyone liked her.
And that Likeability moved mountains. She could get people to drop what they were doing and bend to her smallest need just in an attempt to please her. That’s the power of Likeability.
The great thing about Referent Power or Likeability is that no one minds it as a source of power (except for people who aren’t likeable.) People might reject Positional Power, dread Coercive Power, or fear Expert Power but they rarely reject Referent Power.
The moral of the story is exactly like your mother told you. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
by Charles Plant | Jul 31, 2013 | Leadership Development
Do you ever wonder why everyone is afraid of the people in finance and like the people in HR. Well it comes down to Coercive Power versus Reward Power.
Yup, HR has the ability to reward you. This can come in the way of job assignments, pay, benefits. Good things come from HR. Even if you get fired, that’s not HR’s fault, it’s your boss’.
But finance, that’s another case. They usually have Coercive Power. They don’t have any way of rewarding employees, just of coercing them into doing things the way they want done.
In the world of power politics at the office, these two powers tend to be situational. Other groups may have the ability to reward or coerce but these are the two main culprits. These powers are almost as good and sometimes even better than Positional Power.
After all, Finance can even go so far as to tell the CEO what to do in certain circumstances.
Unfortunately though, these types of powers can’t be added to out Power Politics game of Rock, Paper Scissors as they can’t be used very often and can only be deployed in certain circumstances.
by Charles Plant | Jul 30, 2013 | Leadership Development
A reader’s post got me thinking about power in the workplace. Power, especially positional power, is often misunderstood and frequently misused. There are all sorts of different types of power including:
- Positional power
- Expert power
- Informational power
- Referent power
- Connection power
- Reward power
- Coercive power
Power per se isn’t the problem because there will always be different levels of power of different sorts between individuals in any type of group. The problem occurs as I see it when power is misused.
In my mind and you may debate me on this, the most legitimate types of power are positional and expert based power. After all, there is a good reason why people in certain positions have power as they are held accountable for results so they should have the power to make whatever decisions they need to make in order to get those results.
Expert power too is important as we need to turn to experts in order to make decisions outside our realm of knowledge.
One problem I see frequently is how positional power can trump expert power and leave the expert pissed off and disengaged. I used to serve on a variety Boards of Directors, both commercial and not-for profit. I eventually got fed up and decided to stop serving on boards as I got pissed off one too many times.
The problem is that once you make someone a director of something (or a mentor) many of them think they automatically know everything, otherwise why would they be a director. They often think that every member of a board has equal say, even when they have no background in a topic.
The end result is that a group of non-experts vote down the recommendations of an expert because they have positional power. It happens too inside companies where bone-headed upper management decides something completely in contradiction to the recommendations of their own experts.
Maybe I can make a game of Rock, Paper Scissors out of different types of power.
by Charles Plant | Jul 18, 2013 | Leadership Development
In the last few days, I have read quite a few stories about Bossholes and I keep wondering, is there another perspective on these situations? After all, I’m sure that there are a few people out there who might consider me to be a Bosshole but I don’t think I’m one.
I read one story about a Bosshole and it was clear to me from reading it that the person complaining was clearly in the wrong but she just didn’t get it. If I looked at the situation from her boss’s perspective then I could see why he did what he did. The thing is there are two sides to every story.
It’s much too easy to jump to the conclusion that your boss is a Bosshole when you don’t like what he or she did. I’m convinced that other than Mr. Wonderful, there aren’t many people who wake up every day wondering what new ways might they invent to torment their employees.
I don’t want to play a game of “blame the victim” but when you run into a Bosshole maybe you should look at the situation from his or her perspective. Maybe there are factors that you haven’t considered. Maybe your first perspective is flawed and you might benefit from changing it.
I don’t know. It’s worth a try and it seems to be working for me these days.
by Charles Plant | Jul 16, 2013 | Leadership Development
A response from a faithful reader about yesterday’s post got me thinking about the nature of Bossholism. The funny thing is that Bossholes aren’t that way to everyone, just to subordinates and other unworthies.
After all, Steve Jobs was infamous for being a Bosshole but he had tremendous empathy for customers. In fact the foundation of Apple’s brilliance was his dedication to making products that customers would love, just not jobs that employees would love.
Bossholes are also very nice to their bosses and other employees at higher levels in the organization. And in fact they also might be nice to their families (although I have a hard time believing that Mr Wonderful is just that with his family.)
What is it then that makes a person a Bosshole to some and a Mr Wonderful to others? How can people regulate their emotional intelligence in such a way as to be perfect at some times and a jerk at others?
Since EI is so hard to develop I can only conclude that it is a form of discrimination that causes Bossholes to lack empathy for certain classes of people. The really puzzling thing though is that if Bossholism is tolerated at work, then work is tolerating discrimination.
Workplaces wouldn’t tolerate discrimination against other sexes, other races, or other religions. Why then does it tolerate discrimination by Bossholes against subordinates. Very puzzling.
