Power politics and ethics
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Transcript of Power politics and ethics
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
POWER, POLITICS AND EHICS
Professor Jayashree Sadri and
Dr Sorab Sadri
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
WHY STUDY POWER AND AUTHORITY?
To achieve excellence decisions have to be strategically taken and implemented so that organizational goals are met optimally.
This process involves the interplay of power and authority hat must be understood.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
DEFINITIONS: POWER
(A) Ability to enforce a decision.
(B) Capacity to influence attitude and behavior of others.
(C) Willingness and ability to use brute force to carry forth a design.
(D) Create general public opinion that is favorable to self or desired objective.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Each of these four definitions has a positive and negative aspect:(a) + When the values of both parties are identical –
acceptance
- When the values of both parties differ – rejection
(b) + When you act by example and practice what you preach-trust
- When you say something and act differently – mistrust
© + When you have an end and achieve it anyway – Clarity
- Doing something for hidden agenda – confusion
(d) + Building on strength and underplaying weakness – Creative
- Finding faults in everything - destructive
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Managers should use their power to create:
1. Proper reward system (which should be fair and transparent)
2. Proper opportunities for public recognition(which is a better motivator)
3. Effective counseling systems(to prevent deviant behavior).
4. Create conducive work environment(where honesty, hard work, openness and integrity is rewarded).
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Ethics and Power
For all four of them ethics is related to Power in so far as it affects people’s behavior and their response to the environmental stimuli.
If you want an ethical environment then use power fairly and selflessly.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
The Link
As a rule certain causal relationship is accepted:
Power - Authority - Ethics
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
The Link
Authority legitimizes power. Alternatively, power when legitimized becomes Authority
What sustains authority is Ethics.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Kinds of Authority
Traditional (Culture specific)
Charismatic ( Person specific)
Rational-Legal (Structure specific)
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Ethics thus enters the calculus of power:
1. How is power used? (Negatively or Positively)
2. Who uses it? (Who is supposed to or who is not supposed to)
3. Why is it used? (For selfish interest or self-less goals)
3. Why is it withheld? (To spite others or to protect self-interest)
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Subjective Perception
Whether or not an action is ethical is determined by how one examines the issues raised by these four questions.
E.g. According to the traditionalist reading the Mahabharata, Yujishthir was a stayavadi (pursuer of truth) who on dying went straight to heaven (along with his dog). According to an objective social scientist he was a person who gambled away his riches, his kingdom and his wife.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Bases of Power Legitimate Power: is power that is granted by
virtue of one’s position in the organization. Illegitimate power: is power usurped or derived
through falsehood and deceit. (illusion)
This is basically structural in context because the organizational structure and design denotes where the person is located.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Reward Power
Reward Power is the extent to which a person control rewards that are valued by another.
In any organization where there is clarity and transparency the disbursement of reward power is positive and acts as a motivator.
In an organization where the degree of discretion and arbitrariness is high reward power is negative and promotes organizational politics.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Expert Power
Expert Power is the extent to which a person controls information that is valuable to someone else.
Control over information is a source of power in itself.
Organizations where HRIS is developed and trust relations are evident, power of information is positive.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Coercive Power
Coercive power is the extent to which the person has the ability to punish, physically or psychologically harm someone else.
If used only as a deterrent to be seen but never felt then it is positive.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Referent Power
Referent Power is basically power through identification. This type of power comes from the desire on the part of the other persons to identify with the agent wielding power. Referent power does not always correlate with formal organizational authority.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Ethicality of PowerKind of power Positive Trait Negative Trait
Legitimate Helpful & Humble Pompous & Rude Reward Open & Trusting Closed& SuspiciousExpert Promotes creativity Promotes PoliticsCoercive Discipline VindictiveReferent Promotes Growth Prevents Growth
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Link
In understanding the relation between basis of power and ethicality of power one thing must be clear. The manager is more often than not the victim of his/her upbringing and takes his/her experience on the domestic front into the office or shop floor. Such managers need psychiatric help and counseling from expert HR facilitators. [Beware of self-styled NLP experts].
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Contd..
Their ethics are contingent upon the influence brought to bear on their personal lives and the fact that they are unable to separate personal life from official life.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
A Clarification
Many management thinkers speak of delegating authority. That is wrong since authority is never delegated. What is delegated is the power to make decisions.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
F U D Factor in Decision Making
People who use the concept of power negatively create dependency situations so that they thrive at the expense of others. Then they feed on the FUD Factor:
FEAR – UNCERTAINITY - DOUBT
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Manipulative Control
We are used to parents threatening us with ghosts and priests, pundits, dastoors and mullahs speaking of hell.
Manipulative managers similarly feed on the fear they create intentionally in the minds of others and that is highly unethical.
They then create dependency situations and thrive on it.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
What creates dependency?
The manipulative manager acts such that: Importance of the individual. Scarcity of ability to solve problem. Non Substitutability of the individual.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Personal Power and Positional Power
Personal Power resides in the person, regardless of the position being filled.
Positional Power resides in the position, regardless of who is filling that position.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Positional Power Vs Personal Power.
High Positional Power/Personal Power and Low Personal Power/Positional Power can give the Manager only Moderate Overall Power.
High Positional Power and High Personal Power can give the Manager Strongest Overall Power.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Definition of Politics
When a person or a group works outside its job responsibilities to influence a decision that is likely to bring benefits desired by the person or the group for personal interests then that person or group is said to be indulging in organizational politics.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Organizational politics are activities carried out by people to acquire, enhance and use power and other resources to obtain desired outcomes.
These outcomes could be financial (kickbacks), situational (nepotism) or dominational (oppression).
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Politics is power in action.
There is no place where politics does not exist.
Lord Acton said “ all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
We say
All power corrupts and the threat of losing power corrupts absolutely.
Power is a great aphrodisiac
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Factors influencing political behavior.
Individual factors:
High self-monitors
Internal Locus of Control
High match between man and job
Organizational investment
Perceived job alternatives
Expectations of success
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Organizational Factors
Reallocation of resources Promotional opportunities Low trust relations Role ambiguity Unclear performance evaluation system Zero-sum reward practices Democratic decision making High performance pressures Self-serving senior managers
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Something to chew on
It is generally believed that political behaviour is unethical. This is not so.
It is generally believed that politicians are corrupt. That is also not so.
Ninety percent of politicians are corrupt and that gives the rest ten percent a bad name.
Henry Kissinger
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Think this through
In management too we must never generalize. But treat each case objectively and on its merits.
Political behavior is not per se unethical.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Perhaps
If you are willing to tell a white lie for a good cause it is acceptable.
If you are bending the truth for the greater good of man then it is acceptable.
If you are playing political game to improve the general lot of workmen then it is ethical (e.g. Trade Unions).
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Then Again
If you are circumventing (not breaking) legal provisions so that a majority of employees benefit and society as a whole does not suffer then it is ethical.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Impression Management
Every manager likes to put his best face forward for public viewing and hide the side of his character that is ugly.
He tries to always create a favorable impression of his self in the eyes of others. That is called impression management.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
I M
Organizations are nowadays known to appoint Liaison Officers, Officers on Special Duty and Public Relations Agencies to improve their organization's public image. This is ethical.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
I M
But in improving that public image certain vital facts are massaged or important lacunae are hidden then it is unethical.
When the principal task of the liaison officer or Public Relations Officer is to convert black money into white then it is clearly unethical.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Bribery and Relationship Building
When does bribery begin and relationship building end?
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Bribery and Relationship Building.
When you give someone a divali gift it is bribery? Is it unethical?
When do you give a bribe and when do you build social relationships?
Are you conscious of the difference?
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Three conditions hold if an action is ethical.
There is no clear quid pro quo. The value of the gift is not so high that eyebrows
are raised . (Giving a car as a divali gift.) All gifts that are received are declared by the
executive receiving the gift to top management so that transparency is ensured.(This is done in IBM, General Motors, Tata Steel, Sundaram Fasteners.etc.)
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Techniques of Political Behavior.
Controlling information Controlling lines of communication Using outside experts Controlling Agenda Game Playing Building Coalitions Controlling Decision Parameters
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
Limiting the effects of Political Behavior.
Opening Communication.
Reducing Uncertainty.
Being Aware.
These three enable us to raise the level of social consciousness.
Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri
THANK YOU.