Exploring Leadership, Power, Politics, and Culture at Wells Fargo

This report examines the influence of power, politics, and leadership on Wells Fargo's organizational culture. It discusses how political dynamics and power structures impact decision-making and employee interactions. The report identifies sources of power within the organization, including legitimate, expert, referent, coercive, and reward power, and explores how these can be leveraged to improve business performance. It also analyzes how leadership behavior is shaped by power and politics, and how this influences the overall organizational culture, emphasizing the importance of building trust and open communication. Ultimately, the report concludes that while power and politics have shaped Wells Fargo's culture, effective leadership is essential for fostering a positive and productive environment. Desklib provides students access to this document, along with a wealth of other solved assignments and study resources.

Running Head: LEADERSHIP 0
POWER, POLITICS AND CULTURE
WELL FARGO

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Executive Summary
Wells Fargo and company is the world second largest bank by market capitalization and
ranked #26 in the list of Fortune 500, 2018 as per the revenue. However, problem with the
organization culture has led to various scandals and this affects the company future growth
and goodwill. This report also stated with some supportive recommendation to enhance the
culture. The first section is related to the politics and power play having a significant impact
on the culture of the business enterprise. The second section is an investigation of some of the
sources of power at the organization and how they can be coupled to enhance the
performance of business enterprise. The third section is an explanation with some
recommendations as show how power and politic could influence leadership behaviour and
enhance the business culture. In the last section, the significance and complexity of
leadership behaviour are being discussed and also how it affects the structure of business
enterprise and performance.

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Table of Contents
Influence of Politics and Power.................................................................................................3
Sources of Power........................................................................................................................4
Leadership Behaviour and Culture.............................................................................................5
Leadership Influence..................................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Influence of Politics and Power
Power and politics always have a significant impact on the role of business. In addition, these
two aspects also influence the process of decision-making in respect with interaction of the
employees with each other. According to Lian, Ferris and Douglas (2012), the impact of
power depends solely on the employee use of power – positive or negative. Although power
and politics are perceived an undesirable in the business process, however, they are sometime
essential for business development.
Well Fargo is a company that promotes and encourage productivity. As per Burger (2014),
for helping the employee, client and customer in navigating the system of the organization,
Well Fargo has implemented a consumerization of IT supports framework. Moreover, it is
also ascertained that the director of Team Member Infrastructure Services (Well Fargo)
Sharon Murphy executed this framework for the objective of raising the productivity of the
employees. In this new framework, there will be various technology connections and 24/7
customer service call centre supports the market data services (Burger, 2014). In the
operation of Well Fargo, technology plays a crucial role as if it not working, the customers
cannot succeed financially as the necessary tools will not be there to help them.
Formation of clear chains of command and policies allow the leaders of an organization to
exercise their power responsibly (May, Harris and Collins, 2013). In respect with daily
business operations, organization structure also considered being a critical element. It is used
to divide roles and tasks, activities coordination as well as centralization and decentralization
of different roles. In the company Well Fargo, there is a decentralization of power, as they
believe that leadership is a key to sustainable success.

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In respect with power of changing a framework, Well Fargo is trying to modify the dynamics
of the business. The employees’ motivation level will be boosted under the umbrella of
positive power. This introduction of new framework will lead the company to perform better
in the market and bring creative ideas by gaining employee respect. As per the statement of
Burger (2014), if the employee laptop or desktop is not working, then the market data is not
getting to the appreciate place in time which their team members cannot be productive.
Sources of Power
Organization power is the ownership of power, which gains over others. It depends upon its
use, to bring active or adverse influence to an organization. Power also exercised to an
individual or entity having rule over other individuals (Prugsamatz, 2010).
In an organization, there are five sources of power respectively divided into – Legitimate,
Expert, Referent, Coercive and Reward power (Raven, 2008). The source of legitimate power
is from the job position bearded by an individual in the organization. With this position, the
management can use their position to make the work done with the help of employees. They
will also have a significance influence under the course of employment.
The notable type power in Wells Fargo and Company is legitimate power, whose source in in
the title held in the corporation. The company has CEO, Timothy J. Sloan leading the team.
The power is also being drawn from the legitimacy of their title in the organization. The
leaders also have the power from their skill set and experience in the field.
Secondly, expert power is derived from keeping information or expertise in a circumstantial
area. In Well Fargo, there are various leaders like Kathy Barney, John Alexander and Jim
Hays use their power to influence the productivity of the employee based on problem solving
systems. In relation to expert power, employees hold these ideas and opinions with high

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standards. Then there is referent power, which is drawn from interpersonal relations that is
developed with the other members by a country through individuals. In addition, employees
who have connections with the CEO can generate power over others. Leaders can use this
power to influence employees based on peer-to-peer influence. In addition, who has
connection to the CEO i.e. Timothy J. Sloan, can influence more power on others individuals.
Leaders can also use this power to influence employees based on peer-to-peer influence.
The next power is the coercive power, which is established by delivering threats, sanctions
and punishments (Yeung, Selen, Zhang and Huo, 2009). Well Fargo had set an internal goal
for selling of at least 8 financial products – credit cards, debit cards, etc. to per customer. This
goal leads to high standards for employees to reach the target so that they will not be fired.
This pressure from the management is highly unbearable as goals were not able to achieve.
Then there is a reward power, which is derived from the knowledge of an individual to
determine the allocation of influences in an organization (Jayasingam, Ansari and Jantan,
2010). Leaders at Well Fargo can increase productivity by just offering various reward
programmes.
Leadership Behaviour and Culture
In correlation with organizational culture, Leadership behaviour and culture play an
important role. For instance, behaviour is socially learned and can spread. According to
Baumgartner (2009), culture is an observable pattern of behaviour in the business
corporation, which shifts as per the various responses to internal and external changes. It can
also be said that organization culture is the civilization of the workplace. Moreover, leaders
have the ability to influence the organization culture so it always facilitates learning and
growth of every employee. For instance, employees will be more satisfied, if they will be
involved in the decision making process in an organization and from long-term perspectives,

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this will leads to superior productivity (Farndale,Van Ruiten, Kelliher and Hope‐Hailey,
2011). However, some of the leaders use negative power to encourage employees with
punishment and threats.
It can also be said that the future success of the company stands on their long terms
innovative strategy where leaders need to engage at several areas of the operations. These
leaders need to fulfil the work by holding value and vision of the organization.
Many organizations do not have a consistent political climate as different departments show
different behaviour. However, the organization culture can be improved if the leader has
given the power to influence individual behaviour in light with the respective roles and
responsibilities.
Well Fargo wields several types of power to influence several aspects of business. Within the
organization, there is a power structure – mostly formal but sometimes informal – that wields
power to influence organizational performance. Social network within the business enterprise
can build informal power for the leaders of those social networks. With the help of power and
politics, effective leaders can be recognised which can control the informal power within
their business corporation. The ideas and opinions and the decisions of individuals who
possess power in the business corporation are held in high regard compared to the other
workers.
A good example is when an individual who possesses skilful power can be elevated to
superior management where he gets the legitimate power.
Leadership Influence
Leadership behaviour plays a crucial role in moulding the culture of the organization. It is
just like the term, “Monkey see, Monkey Do.” Burger (2014) also stated that Well Fargo has

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good authentic leadership that enforces the role and responsibilities related to job daily to all
individuals and employees. Well Fargo also has various consultative and accessible who aim
to collect the feedback and opinions from all the employees across the business enterprise.
This enables the leaders to be work with all individuals as it will help them to gain the trust if
their subordinates, employees and followers. However, this can also prove to be harmful if
one individual or employee will be having a negative experience with any other member of
the company. According to Uhl-Bien, Marion and McKelvey (2007), leadership is a complex
phenomenon and there is not any one style of leadership that is suitable for all the leadership
positions.
Complexity leadership theory is an approach that recognizes the complexity of interrelations
and interdependence between individuals and its surroundings in comparison with the other
approaches as per leadership styles (Parris and Peachey, 2013). For making things
understandable to employees, leaders need to first break complex things into simple and
considered talented pool on board. They are also responsible to build a bridge of trust and
collaborate it with weight and faith behind them during the course of execution.

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Conclusion
It can be concluded that power and politics have shaped the culture of the organization
whereas leadership is essential and potential to change the company culture. Leaders in Well
Fargo can directly influence the employee of the organization with the help of leadership and
power. It is the responsibility of the leader to maintain the core value of the business
corporation by building a culture of trust and open communication.

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References
1. Rupert J. Baumgartner. 2009. Organizational culture and leadership: Preconditions for
the development of a sustainable corporation. Sustainable development, 17(2),
pp.102-113.
2. Kathy Burger. May 12, 2014. How Wells Fargo Is Improving Employees�
Experience � And Productivity.
http://www.banktech.com/management-strategies/how-wells-fargo-is-improving-
employees-experience---and-productivity/d/d-id/1317908.html
3. Elaine Farndale, Joppe V. Ruiten, Clare Kelliher and Veronica Hope‐Hailey. 2011.
The influence of perceived employee voice on organizational commitment: An
exchange perspective. Human Resource Management, 50(1), pp.113-129.
4. Sharmila Jayasingam, Mahfooz A. Ansari, Muhamad Jantan. 2010. Influencing
knowledge workers: the power of top management. Industrial Management & Data
Systems, 110(1), pp.134-151.
5. Huiwen Lian, Lance D. Ferris, J. Douglas. 2012. Does power distance exacerbate or
mitigate the effects of abusive supervision? It depends on the outcome. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 97(1), p.107.
6. Thomas May, Spencer Harris, S and Mike Collins. 2013. Implementing community
sport policy: understanding the variety of voluntary club types and their attitudes to
policy. International journal of sport policy and politics, 5(3), pp.397-419.
7. Denise L. Parris and Jon W. Peachey. 2013. A systematic literature review of servant
leadership theory in organizational contexts. Journal of business ethics, 113(3),
pp.377-393.

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8. Raphaella Prugsamatz. 2010. Factors that influence organization learning
sustainability in non-profit organizations. The learning organization, 17(3), pp.243-
267.
9. Bertram H. Raven. 2008. The bases of power and the power/interaction model of
interpersonal influence. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 8(1), pp.1-22.
10. Mary Uhl-Bien, Russ Marion and Bill McKelvey. 2007. Complexity leadership
theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era. The
leadership quarterly, 18(4), pp.298-318.
11. Jeff H.Y. Yeung, Willem Selen, Min Zhang and Baofeng Huo. 2009. The effects of
trust and coercive power on supplier integration. International Journal of Production
Economics, 120(1), pp.66-78.