Maha Algarni
PUAD 520
Professor Burroughs
30 October 2015
Administrative Journal #1
Outer Experience In many organizations, the organizational structure becomes a bureaucracy which involves its own challenges and problems. The outlook on the issue of power in American organizations is ambivalent due to the need of a leader to be a good politician while also seeing politics as detrimental to efficiency (Pfeffer 33). Most respondents agree that workplace politics is common in most organizations, that successful executives must be good politicians, and that the higher up the ladder – the more political the climate becomes (Pfeffer 34). Pfeffer notes that power and influence can be acquired and exercised for evil purposes, but few people
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Wamsley and Zald devote their article to a public administration theory using the political economy approach. The authors treat organizations as social systems - dynamic, adapting, and internally differentiated (63). The political economy approach examines legitimacy and distribution of power as they affect the propriety of an agency’s existence, its functional niche, its collective goals, and the means of task accomplishment in some cases (64). The authors argue that the power resources of actors, their willingness or ability to use them, and their skill in building coalitions are important factors in political economy. Wamsley and Zald also identify dimensions of political capacity to manipulate such as: 1) goals, ambiguity, and clarity; 2) surveillance; 3) centrality of values; 4) personnel and funding allocation; and 5) support structures and feedback loops (65-66).
Reflection on Outer Experience Distribution and the use of power in organizations is an important issue since the very early existence of bureaucracy. Managers use various sources of power at their disposal to lead, motivate, and control the work of their subordinates such as legitimate, reward, coercive, and referent powers. Most of organizations are based on the hierarchy and chain of command where the title of the leader reflects the status within the organization. Based on the hierarchal status, the leader is able to exert more power on the subordinates. Legitimate
Political Activity is alive and well in organisations – one of the biggest killers of productivity is not a lack of innovation, productive systems or visionary thinking, its politics (Fraser, 2013, p. 1). It is a major issue in organisations as the individual who controls their working relationship consumes time and resources for their own gain at the company’s expense. In this
Classifying the authority - Once the departments are made, the manager likes to classify the powers and its extent to the managers. This activity of giving a rank in order to the managerial positions is called hierarchy. The top management is into formulation of policies, the middle level management into departmental supervision and lower level management into supervision of foremen. The clarification of authority helps in bringing efficiency in the running of a concern. This helps in achieving efficiency in the running of a concern. This helps in avoiding wastage of time, money, effort, in
in politics, and even individuals in administration, are destined to get “dirty hands.” The concept implicates that individuals who interact in either of these realms cannot help but engage in conduct that is either unethical or, at the very least, less than desirable. Although, many researchers acknowledge that there does exist separate meaning between the roles of political constituents and administrative staff, many believe there are also plenty of similarities. In examining the political/administrative dichotomy, researchers have found extreme overlap in some instances, which emphasizes the probability that administrative staff can also find themselves with dirty hands. Many argue that it is absolutely necessary, in some instances, for individuals to act deceptively with a lack of transparency in order to reach ultimate goals with desirable ends. These ends might include advancing the bigger goals of the organization or preventing the fall of the organization as a whole. However, the
Authority represents the power that lies within a managerial position and that gives the manager the right to assign the jobs to his subordinates and to expect that the assigned jobs would be completed by the subordinates. By the virtue of authority, the superiors are empowered to make their juniors and subordinates work. The organizational structure should clearly define the line of authority so that the overlapping actions might be avoided (Mahida).
Collaboration is essential in order to create a working and lasting relationship between politics and Public Administration. This is not only true for the public sector but is possible in the private sector as well. When thinking about the bureaucracy that constantly separates the two, perhaps it is possible to bypass the bureaucracy altogether and simply put ideas into action. There are several examples to be found of charitable trusts simply taking action, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and in doing so have not been held to any particular political party or even concept, but simply the need for service to the public without the red tape. There are ways to create these changes through collaboration at the federal, state, and local level.
Power and authority are different concepts; however, the terms function reciprocally in the bureaucratic structure of an organization. The organization’s power is centered at the top and the authority flows from the top down through ordered levels of management: from senior executives to regional managers to departmental managers and supervisors who work with the frontline employees. Authority and control from different levels of hierarchy within a bureaucratic structure are defining to the entire purpose of the organization. All departments have organizational charts, and everyone understands who is in charge and their responsibilities. Job descriptions are detailed and specialized and management monitors outcomes, which in turn
In large organizations, such as the Government, managing organizational structure is certainly a challenge. The most recent change in administration with the Government has created leadership turnover within the executive branch and its associated cabinets. This change brings about a number of challenges within the various components of the Government. Problems can be found both within the structure of the organization itself as well as in the way leadership manages the structure. Considering the definition of organizational structure as "effective communication, effective coordination, speed/responsiveness to the customer, and empowerment," leadership is the key to organizational structure (Schoology, 2017, p. 3). Although the Government has well established missions, visions, and goals throughout its various components, leadership often fails to manage the organizational effectiveness, which supports the mission, vision, and goals established by the leadership. The leadership required to synchronize organizational structure with the mission, vision, and goals of the organization, in order to obtain organizational effectiveness, is often overcome by personal and political agendas, such as control, advancement, or pay. These agendas can be cancerous
There are links between power and leadership and the management of power and decision-making across and inter-organizational (like hospitals) or network-based systems (like insurance companies.) The most important consequence of linking the power and leadership literatures is the need for future research to focus on power not only within but also between organizational levels as well as between
Even a teacher, parents, police, manager or professor, they are using different kind of power influence. Hence, the power used by the leader when he forces the team to achieve the goals, that’s called position power. Legitimate, reward and coercive power are five bases of power. The information power was added in 1965 proposed by Raven . Personal power can be a person uses the knowledge or experience to get the job done. Lunenburg (2012) mentioned great leader make things happen by utilizing personal power. There are expert and referent power.
The effect of the political environment on public organisations. The influence of Politics is a challenge for public sector
The word politics is taken in a negative sense in most of the situations. Despite of this widely held belief, politics can be found everywhere right from home to the organization or the country level. Politics exists in every place where there are more than one person seeking same resources which are limited. Intentionally or unintentionally, everybody plays politics in one or the other way to serve their purpose and it proves to be helpful for someone while considered as “dirty” by others who are not benefitted by it. But probably it cannot be avoided as the politics comes in various forms and is present in every field of work in one or the other form. However, we are here to discuss about the politics present in the organizations in
Winning organizations today, attribute much of their success to having great people, great processes, and great leaders who inspire and motivate employees to follow them. Great leaders understand that they have influence and power over individuals, and what they do with this power defines them for years to come. We can all think of leaders of whom we respect and model our current behaviors after, and transversely, we can all think of leaders whose behaviors we are sure to avoid in our own leadership styles. Successful organizations encourage leaders to stretch themselves for personal development, while empowering others to be the best they can be in the workplace. The difficult part for many leaders is digesting the power they possess and ensuring they use the appropriate influence tactic based on the situation or the individual they are dealing with. Dubrin (2016) stated to acquire and retain power, leaders must skillfully use organizational politics, and in order to make effective use of the politics, leaders must be aware of specific political tactics and strategies! My research revealed that organizations from all industries deal with work-place politics and ethics, and rely heavily on leadership behaviors that foster a culture of success.
Leaders face challenges in many areas including delegation, managing conflict, and building teams (Yukl, 2013). To minimize these and other challenges, guidelines should be established. Leaders must also recognize and understand the various types and uses of power in organizations and how individuals at different levels may employ power. Various theoretical perspectives exist to explain behaviors within organizations; some appear to hold greater relevance than others (Yukl, 2013).
In this week’s readings, the authors spoke at length in regards to power and how leaders should accrue/use their power (Goncalves, 2013; Northouse, 2016; Sager, 2008; Stapleton, n.d.). In the Goncalves (2013) article, the author explains the difference between power and leadership through the use of “Legitimate, Expert, Coercive, Reward, Referent, Charisma and Information” management powers (p.2). In the Northouse (2016) reading, the author takes these same management powers and categorizes them. Next, Sager (2008) expands on the seven management powers; however, he adds one important managerial power to our knowledge base. In the last reading, Stapleton (n.d.) wrote his insight of when and when not to use these management powers. All four readings on management power have provided ample information regarding this one important topic.
As stated by McClelland, everyone has some desire for power, however that need is much stronger in some than in others, and therefore individuals have different motives for achieving power (McClelland et al., 1953). Over the decades, several studies have been published on the topic of power motivation, resulting in mixed findings where some have found power motivation in leaders to have a positive influence on organizational success and others demonstrating a negative impact. Specifically, past research has shown that power motivation is an important factor in predicting business success (McClelland et al., 1953), organizational effectiveness (McClelland & Boyatzis, 1982; McClelland & Burnham, 1976), political leadership (Winter, 1987), and prosocial decision making (Magee & Langner, 2008). On the other hand, previous studies have also found positive correlations between motivation for power and negative work-related behaviors, including aggressive behavior (Winter, 2000), increased threat in conflicts (Magee & Langner, 2008), and increased risk-taking (McClelland & Watson, 1973). To supplement these negative findings, another study found that need for power predicted further negative work-related