Power in Workplace

Running head: POWER IN WORKPLACE
Power in Workplace
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1POWER IN WORKPLACE
Power refers to the capacity that an individual has that helps him in influencing the
conduct of other people. Power acts as a compound social characteristic by taking recourse to
which an individual can force the action or the inaction of the other individuals that is
contrary to their needs along with desires. Power is derived from the ability of imposing
coercion and it helps in setting agenda in relation to future action (Maner & Mead, 2010).
The use of power in the workplace depends on the personality of the employees and his
position in the company. This essay discusses about the different sources of power. The essay
also talks about the different categorization of power and the effects of power in an
organization. The essay also illustrates examples that helps in revealing how power can be
used for the betterment of an entire organization.
According to French and Raven, power can be divided into that of five distinct forms
(Raven, 2017). There are various forms of power that has an effect on the leadership potential
of an individual. The five bases of power are coercive, expert, referent, legitimate and
reward. According to Hughes (1993), coercive power makes use of threat of the force that
can help an individual in gaining compliance from that of another person. Expert power is on
the basis of what an individual knows and experiences. An individual can demonstrate
expertise with the help of reputation, actions along with credentials. Referent power can be
said to be rooted within affiliations that an individual makes and the outcome of referent
power can be either positive or it can be negative. Legitimate power is derived from
appointed position of the authority which is undermined by that of the social norms. It has
been argued by Blau (2017) that the rewarding and the punishing of the subordinates is
thought of to be legitimate part of leadership role. Reward power is on the basis of right of
some individual that provides him with the opportunity of offering or denying the emotional
and the spiritual rewards to other people.