Role of Power, Politics and Conflicts in Organizations: A Case Study of Tesco, UK

This report discusses the role of power, politics and conflicts in organizations with a case study of Tesco, UK. It covers various types of power, impact of politics, negative and positive impacts of organizational politics, types of conflicts and ways to manage them.

Leadership and Leading

Table of Contents
Introduction:..............................................................................................................3
Impact of power, politics and conflicts in the organization:.....................................3
Role of power in organization:..............................................................................3
Role of politics in the organization:......................................................................5
Role of Conflicts in an organization:.....................................................................8
Conclusion:................................................................................................................9
Personal Learning:.....................................................................................................9
References:..............................................................................................................11

Introduction:
This report focuses on the role of power, politics and conflicts in the
organization. This discusses various types of power which top level management
executes in order to get things done by people. Moreover, it discusses various types
of power used in the businesses such as legitimate, reward, coercive, referent, and
expert which ultimately helps to accomplish goals of the organization. Besides this,
it discusses the role of politics in the business concern and how it can be well
managed to increase the profit levels of the business. This report also explains
reasons of conflicts in the organization and how it can be reduced to a large extent.
This report takes Tesco, UK as an example and how this organization uses these
related concepts to improve the productivity of concern.
Impact of power, politics and conflicts in the organization:
Role of power in organization:
In relation to organization, it is the ability of getting things done from
others. It is beneficial from the business perspective where managers assigns tasks
and responsibilities to others and make them perform those activities. It is the role
performed by leader to guide employees what to do to achieve the organizational
objectives. An organization uses various sources of power such as legitimate
power which means top level executives have power over juniors working under
them. So, basically an employee who gets expertise in certain field have enough
knowledge on subject matter which gives them power over the ones who lacks in
that knowledge. (Bollens, 2021) It is ensuring employees fulfilling their
commitment and compliance in the business organization. Moreover, it helps in
avoiding resistance among coworkers and make sure they work in harmony which
would lead to productivity in the organization.
There are various types of power used in the organizations as suggested by John R.
P French and Bertram Raven:
 Legitimate power: Here, managers and top level executives are having
certain powers with respect to employees working under them due to
having expertise in the particular field. As per this, manager assigns

projects, framed certain policies and procedures to be followed by
workforce and many more. Besides this, employees do have certain rights
which are granted by federal laws such as employees can straightaway
refuse to take on unsafe work or tolerate harassment.
 Reward power: It is a type of power which is assigned to the leader to give
rewards on the basis of performance. It means manager will give reward for
good performance and punish in case if they failed to fulfill their
obligations. They give monetary or non monetary rewards to their
employees for their good performance.
 Coercive power: It means management has power to punish the employees
in the organization if they haven’t accomplished the task or have not
performed according to the norms. It is not generally practiced in
organization or rarely used at the times of crisis.
 Expert power: It is a type of power which comes with getting expertise in
subject matter. It is achieved by getting experiences and trainings in
relevant field. For instance, inventory manager has knowledge regarding
sales repetitive needs which gives power over another one. When one has
knowledge which other seeks, this gives the power to lead over others.
 Referent power: It means likability of the person as a leader. It is ability to
influence and inspire others. It comes from the personal qualities and traits
which a leader possesses. Moreover, one should have charming personality
to attract others and become role model who deserves to be admired and
respected by others.
Advantage of using power in an organization:
Changes: Managing the information becomes challenging when organization
increases in size, so for managers allow power structures to play role in
organization. Otherwise, it becomes difficult for the business to grow and improve.
It is important for the businesses to make changes as per market trends otherwise
they would not be able to survive for long term. So, power of top management
comes in play. As people working in lower positions respects top executives
advices and behavior due to which they get easily convinced to accept those
changes. So it is used in many ways and management uses it the best to
company’s advantage. (Bryson, 2018)

According to Machiavelli’s it is believed when a prince comes into power by birth
through luck or blessings of powerful regime, it is easy to gain power but becomes
challenging to keep it further because power depends upon goodwill created by
self. So, power is an important tool used by the management to influence others
and achieve the goals and targets of organization.
Role of politics in the organization:
Politics is a universal phenomenon that is inherent in all types of
organizational settings. Organizational politics refers to personal agendas of
individual in a company. People from different backgrounds come with all sort of
political tactics in business with the objective of having growth at the expense of
others. Workplace politics occurs when individuals work deviate from
organizational goals and objectives. It exists in organization because of self interest
and put control over others. Workplace politics is so woven in the management
system that relationships, processes, performance and results are all influenced and
affected by it. It is a process which involves the use of power and authority within
workplace settings to achieve changes that benefit the organization and individuals
working with it.. There are two types of politics positive and negative. Positive
politics behaviors are designed to influence others with the goals of serving both
organization and people working for it. It includes showing ones accomplishments
and complimenting others in order to have good relations. The negative impacts of
organizational politics include tension and stress, dissatisfaction among employees,
low morale among workers whereas; positive impacts are employee performance
and motivation. (Cohn, 2017)
Negative impacts of politics in an organizational setting:
 It leads to discrimination in an organization on certain basis.
 It erodes organizational interest due to self interest.
 Laying off skilled workforce by top level management as a result of loosing
management positions.
 So, it is informal, unofficial methods of selling ideas, influence an
organization, increase power or achieve the goals of organization.
 Increase in stress and anxiety: employees have stress due to the constant fear
of losing their job.

 Decreasing levels of productivity: those who are engaged in these politics
are often seen as not paying attention to their work and ones who are
engaged with personal agendas are less likely to work for organizational
interest. So, this decreases overall productivity of the business concern.
 Cynicism: This leads to low morale, lower productivity and dissatisfaction
among the workers. (Samuels, 2018)
There are various types of organizational politics as mentioned below:
 Self promotion: It means upgrading their performance at the expense of
others. Here, in this individual works to advance their career regardless of
thinking who they are stepping on in the middle of this process. Besides this,
to promote own ideas at further level this person will kill others creativity,
suggestions or opinions.
 Office politics: It means when one person or group tries to influence others
opinions to persuade, influence, manipulate others. They perform this for
their own advantage in order to make high profits. This politics is good if it
is for helping people but has negative consequences if everyone is trying to
win at the expense of others. (Colson, 2017)
 Factionalism: It is formed when groups within the organizational setting
splits on two bases such as common tasks and common interest. When this
happens within firm these smaller factions will form their own agendas
which they believe would help to accomplish their tasks. So, it becomes a
negative factor as these fractions will make use of any means to win. But as
per the perspective of large organizations, it is good because it promotes
agility and innovation. (Vaubel, 2019)
 Gate keeping: It is a type of politics when an individual or group who is in
power intentionally prevents others ideas, concepts and people from entering
into any situation which is either personal or related to any work. They do
this to maintain their position in the organization and prevent others from
challenging them in any way. It has negative results such as preventing
talented people from entering in the organization, bad decision continues due
to power of these gatekeepers. (Gerner, 2018)
 Territorialism: It happens when people get extremely attached to certain
role and refused others to fill this. Additionally, when they gets comfortable
with the roles and responsibilities they don’t allow others to interrupt. For

instance, a manager who refuses to give up control of the project or the
professor who has expertise in teaching a particular subject for years and so
on.
 Bossism: It means favoring the ones who reports directly to the boss. It
comes up with many negative consequences such as alienating employees
and leading to power struggles within an organization. (Zahariadis, 2019)
What causes workplace politics?
Employees use office politics due to various reasons such as gaining power,
popularity or spoiling someone’s reputation and many more. Due to these reasons
it can be positive as well as negative. Sometimes individuals have to manage
relations in order to achieve results. As long as everybody is working in the right
direction it is positive. (Haggard, Maxfield and Schneider, 2018)
How organizational politics can be reduced?
 Minimum degree of workplace politics is unavoidable in any business
context. So, setting realistic target with employees will be useful.
 To avoid this management should assign tasks on time and try to maintain
positive relations with employees which includes communicating
effectively, collaborating with them in an effective manner and others. This
will bring harmony in the organization and avoid any kind of conflicts and
clashes. (Robbins, 2019)
 If they lack in cooperating with each other, it is better to change approach of
handling workforces or by arranging lunch together to get along better. So,
management has to figure out ways to deal with the colleagues positively
and in a friendly way.
 Focusing on organizational norms and values would be helpful in guiding
employees what to do and helps to prevent from any kind of office politics.
 The crucial thing in any organization is for employees are to know they are
valued, noticed and treated well. So, it is the duty of top level executives to
brush up their skills, delegating work as per the experience of individual and
help them working effectively and efficiently in the organization. (Hayden,
2017)

Role of Conflicts in an organization:
It is the state of disagreement between the people working in the
organization due to the difference in opinions, values or needs among people. At
workplace when two or more people interact with each other but conflicts occur
when their opinions are in contradiction. (Lev, 2021)
Factors responsible for conflicts:
 Unclear responsibilities: If there is lack of clarity regarding who is
responsible for what, in such situations conflicts take place. It is caused due
to interpersonal issues between the members of the organization.
 Relations among workers: Every organization has workforce from diverse
cultural backgrounds which becomes barriers while communicating. These
conflicts often caused due to interpersonal issues between the members of
the business concern.
 Scarcity of resources: It is one of the crucial reasons of the organization
which leads conflicts in business concern. Here, in organizations due to
inadequacy of time, money and efforts people compete with each other
which further leads to conflicts in the undertaking. (Lovan, Murray and
Shaffer, 2017)
 Conflicts between interests: When there is lack of coordination between
the goals of organization and individual goals this leads to conflicts. As per
this, individual focuses on achieving personal goals which ultimately hinders
overall growth of organization.
Types of organizational conflicts:
 Relationship conflicts: This is a type of conflict which arises out of
interpersonal issues among employees due to lack of harmony in their
opinions.
 Task conflicts: When there is lack of coordination among members
regarding the nature of work to be performed, it would result in task
conflicts.
 Process conflict: This type clash of incurs due to the lack of coordination in
organization about the process to be followed to perform any task.
(Micheletti, 2017)

Ways to manage conflicts in the organization are as follows:
 Conflicts and clashes in the organization can be prevented by handling the
problems positively by both the parties.
 To reduce the chances of conflicts an official grievance procedure should be
followed.
 By focusing on the causes, instead of effects problems can be avoided to a
large extent.
 Parties of the conflicts should be given equal chances to speak irrespective
of their position, term and political influences.
 In organizations, conflicts are inevitable but these can be resolved or can be
used in a way which would increase the productivity of the organization.
(Peters, 2021)
Conclusion:
With respect to the above report it is concluded, in an organization powers
are used to influence others to accomplish the goals and objectives of organization.
In this top level management uses power to create harmony in the business concern
by addressing concerns of people working under them. Whereas, politics is
positive as well as negative depends upon organizational context. It is good to
motivate people whereas bad because it causes unnecessary stress and anxiety
among members which ultimately leads to conflicts in the business concern. This
report discusses various ways of managing conflicts and clashes in order to
increase the productivity of organization.
Personal Learning:
This is in regards to personal learning from this module power, politics and
conflicts are the vital pillars on which organization rests. They play an important
role in deciding the structure of the business concern. Moreover, they differ in
manifestation in the organizational processes. They are all interrelated to each
other and individual uses these in order to achieve goals of the organization. I will
use power to influence others to work according to the responsibilities assigned to
them. It is the authority which gives commands to lead other people. It is one of

the major factors which affect the business processes. Additionally, it is exercised
in all direction whether upwards, downwards, horizontal, vertical and so on. It
affects organization in many positive and negative ways. Such as positively it
would lead to improve the healthy competition between employees, it is persuasive
and inspiring which would boost morale of workers. It will improve the
productivity of the organizations and led to more profits. It helps to create sense of
belongingness among people working at higher level with people working at lower
level. On the contrary, such as people who have powers try to dominate others and
often ends up by misusing their powers. Moreover, in organization, workplace
politics is common and it is present everywhere. It is present in each and every
type of organization due to self interest of people. And due to lack of harmony in
personal and organizational interest conflicts and clashes incurs. It can be managed
by creating harmony in personal interest with organizational interest which would
led to profits in organization and create satisfaction among workers. Besides this,
conflicts in the organization can be managed by focusing on the causes which
creates problems in the organization and give each and every one chance to come
up with their concern irrespective of their powers and positions.

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