Mgt' 667 Leadership Week 8

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Mgt. 667 LeadershipWeek 8

• Rex Mitchell
• Spring 2006

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2nd Reflection Papers

• Good work!
• Almost all
• Showed new learning
• Demonstrated insights
• Had good emergent questions
• Made this useful for you
• Many identified specific actions

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• Power potential ability to influence behavior,
  events get people to do things they would not do
  otherwise
• Influence, politics processes actions through
  which potential power is used
• Leadership art of mobilizing others to want to
  struggle for shared aspirations

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Engaging with Readings

• What are my reactions to this thoughts,
  feelings?
• What do I agree with, like, want to remember and
  use? Why?
• What do I disagree with, wish were different,
  would change, would expand on...? Why?
• What connections expansions can I make from my
  experience?

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Strategies Tactics for Using Power Effectively
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Using Power Effectively

• Framing
• Information and analysis
• Interpersonal influence
• Timing
• Structure
• Symbolic actions

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Strategies for Using Power Effectively

• Framing
• Information and analysis
• Interpersonal influence
• Timing
• Structure
• Symbolic actions

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Framing

• In addition to our earlier points, consider
  Pfeffer ch. 10
• Anchoring effects
• Gordon Liddy example (ch. 10, p.189)
• Sales
• Charity fund-raising
• Counteracting commitment
• Twelve Angry Men film

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Strategies for Using Power Effectively

• Framing
• Information and analysis
• Interpersonal influence
• Timing
• Structure
• Symbolic actions

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Information Analysis

• Pfeffer ch.13, p.247) There is little doubt that
  information, and the certainty that it can
  provide, is a source of power... and can be used
  as part of a very important political
  strategygetting one's way through analysis.

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Information Analysis As a Political Tactic

• Need for appearance of rationality Using
  information and analysis to justify decisions,
  even after the fact
• Limits of facts and analysis In complex
  decisions, it is very unlikely that analysis will
  clearly resolve the issue of what to do
• Selective use of information (framing again)
  Leaving room for the advocacy of criteria and
  information that favor one's own position
• Why there is often no learning or evaluation
  The discovery of decision quality is both
  difficult and often avoided

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Information Analysis

• (262) Many decisions have remote or highly
  indirect connections to the outcomes that are
  measured
• (265) The connection between results and what
  happens to people is quite tenuous
• (265) We should probably not hesitate to use
  information and analysis to exercise power in
  organizations, since the strategy is an effective
  one and the likelihood of our being called to
  account for our actions is not very great

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Strategies for Using Power Effectively

• Framing
• Information and analysis
• Interpersonal influence
• Timing
• Structure
• Symbolic actions

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Interpersonal Influence As a Political Tactic

• Three topics in Pfeffer ch. 11
• Social proof (we are influenced by what our
  colleagues are saying and doing)
• Use of ingratiation
• The role of emotions
• What else?

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Interpersonal Influence Social Proof

• Momentum is very important in affecting a
  decision or accomplishing something. Once a
  social consensus begins to develop in one
  direction, it is difficult to change
• It may be more appropriate to think of decisions
  as unfolding rather than being made
• It is invaluable to have allies or supporters to
  provide social consensus re a particular position

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Interpersonal Influence Ingratiation

• We prefer to say yes to the requests of people we
  know and like
• (216) Flattery or ingratiation is a very
  effective technique of interpersonal influence
• Sincere and accurate
• Instrumental
• (218) One of the more subtle but effective forms
  of flattery is being responsive and attentive to
  others
• (220) ...importance of working through friends
  or mutual acquaintances to influence third parties

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Interpersonal Influence Emotions

• Using expressed or displayed emotion can be an
  effective technique of interpersonal influence
• However, it is not something everyone can do
• There is... some skill involved in the strategic
  display of emotions.

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Strategies for Using Power Effectively

• Framing
• Information and analysis
• Interpersonal influence
• Timing
• Structure
• Symbolic actions

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Timing

• Timing Is (Almost) Everything
• (ch. 12, p.227) Actions that are well-timed may
  succeed, while the same actions, undertaken at a
  less opportune moment, may have no chance of
  success

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Timing

• Being early and moving first
• Delay
• The waiting game
• Deadlines
• Order of consideration
• Anchoring effects
• Sequence of decisions resulting commitments
• Interdependence of decisions
• Propitious moments

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Strategies for Using Power Effectively

• Framing
• Information and analysis
• Interpersonal influence
• Timing
• Structure
• Symbolic actions

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Using Structure As a Tactic

• Some managers use structure for tactical
  advantage
• Although organizational design should be used to
  ensure efficient operation
• (ch. 14, p.268) Divide and conquer
• (271) Expansion of one's domain
• (274) Use task forces and committees to
  institutionalize your power and diffuse
  responsibility for decisions, co-opt others

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Strategies for Using Power Effectively

• Framing
• Information and analysis
• Interpersonal influence
• Timing
• Structure
• Symbolic actions

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Symbolic Actions As aPower Tactic

• Language, Ceremonies, and Settings
• (ch. 15, p.279) Given the choice of influencing
  you through your heart or your head, I will pick
  the heart
• Using political language, settings, and
  ceremonies effectively elicits powerful emotions
  in people, and these emotions interfere with or
  becloud rational analysis

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Instrument 6, Use of Influence Tactics

• Review your self-assessment, particularly noting
  relatively high or low usage items
• Identify two or more tactics with which you would
  like to experiment increasing or decreasing
  usage
• Make some notes for yourself
• Share with a neighbor

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Power DynamicsHow Power is Lost How
Organizational Dynamics Change
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Even the Mighty Fall

• Pfeffer ch. 16
• In groups, each identify and summarize one point
  you particularly want to agree or disagree with,
  or expand on

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Case 7, Opportunity Lost

• Three questions at end of case
• Who had power in this organization? What type of
  power did Harry Walden have?
• Do you think Roger played company politics well?
  If so, why didnt he get the job?
• What would you do now, if you were Roger? What
  political strategies could he use?
• Report back discuss

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PoliticsThe Organization as Political Arena,
The Leader as Politicianwww.csun.edu/hfmgt001/
politics.doc
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Organizational Politics

• Processes, actions, behaviors through which
  potential power is utilized and realized
• Used to achieve power, either directly or
  indirectly
• Informal approaches to gaining power through
  means other than merit or luck
• Way to reconcile differences through consultation
  and negotiation
• Neither good nor bad, intrinsically
• Necessary for effective leadership

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Factors Contributing to Politics

• Pyramid-shaped organization design
• Subjective performance standards
• Environmental uncertainty and turbulence
• Emotional insecurity
• Greed and manipulative tendencies
• Lack of congruence in goals strategies

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Some Political S Ts

• Develop power contacts relationships
• Make a good early showing
• Keep informed
• Control vital information
• Control lines of communication
• Provide favors (ingratiation)
• Display loyalty
• Develop reputation as expert

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• Rational persuasion
• Manage your impressions
• Bring in outside experts
• Consult with ask advice
• Ask customers to tell your boss
• Be courteous, pleasant, positive
• Thank-you notes
• Flatter others sensibly
• Develop allies coalitions

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Some Usually Unethical Tactics

• Back stabbing
• Purge all but loyalists
• Set others up for failure
• Exert undue pressure
• Divide and conquer (sometimes)
• Play self-serving territorial games

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Avoid Political Blunders

• Embarrassing boss in public
• Surprising boss
• Bypassing boss
• Declining offers from top management

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• I believe use of organizational politics is
  necessary for a leader to acquire and retain
  power and to accomplish major goals
• This use should be
• Appropriate
• Skillful
• Ethical
• And should contribute to a balanced set of
  interests, not just that individuals

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Case 8 Comparison of Two Leaders

• Each group discusses one of Q.1-3 plus Q.4
• Report back discuss

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• Leaders don't create followers, they create
  more leaders Tom Peters
• Leadership development is self-development KP
• Love and power need not be in competition,
  unless we organize our thinking to make it so

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• We must become the change we
• wish to see in the world Mahatma Gandhi
• Leadership is not an affair of
• the head.Leadership is an affair of the heart.