The Interplay of Power, Politics, and Culture in Effective Management

This report delves into the critical interplay of power, politics, and culture within organizations, emphasizing their impact on organizational performance and leadership behavior. It examines how power dynamics, including legitimate, reward, referent, expert, and coercive power, influence employee engagement, manipulation, and career opportunities. The report highlights how power-play affects organizational culture, both positively and negatively, and recommends strategies to improve leadership and foster a more creative and productive environment. Furthermore, it explores the importance and complexity of leadership behavior and its influence on organizational structure and overall performance, concluding that effective management necessitates a clear understanding of these interconnected elements to drive organizational success.

Power Politics and Culture
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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Politics and power-play may have influenced the organization’s culture..................................3
Sources of Power........................................................................................................................4
Study of power and politics could influence leadership behaviour and improve organisational
culture.........................................................................................................................................6
Importance and complexity of leadership behaviour and it influences organizational structure
and performance.........................................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
In the dynamic world, it has been found that organisation power and politics is
considered as one of the important element for the organisation. The report shows that in the
business, power and politics greatly influence on the culture of company which in turn affects
the productivity of the company. While performing the role of the consultant, it has been
observed that politics and power has the influence on the corporate culture. In addition, the
sources of power is understood which can be used by the management to influence the
benefits of department as well as to enhance the performance. Further, it include the
recommendations that can provide the support to the study of power as well as politics which
could affects the leadership behaviour and contribute in improving the culture of
organisations. The leadership behaviour is complex and it has the influence on the company
performance and structure which is discussed in report.

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Politics and power-play may have influenced the organization’s culture
The politics that is majorly witnessed in the organisation are informal, unofficial and
remained behind-the-scenes sometimes which efforts to sell ideas which leads to influence on
the power or accomplish other targeted objectives. On the other hand, Power-play is an
attempt to gain the advantage by reflecting that you are powerful than another person or
organisation. It remains beneficial within the company in which the managers assign the tasks
to diverse employees make them to perform the task. It has been found that power-play and
politics leads to the influence on culture of company (Western, 2019). The politics of
organisation defines the variety of the activities linked with the use of influence tactics to
enhance the personal as well as organisational interests. The influence of politics and power-
play can lead to the positive as well as negative influence on the culture of company. Some of
them are presented below:-
Leadership responsibility: - Power-play gives an opportunity to the leader to take the steps
in order to meet the responsibility towards the organisation. In the business, the power is in
the hand of leaders which is directly used by them in forming the culture which can be in
positive terms or in negative terms (Saleem, 2015). The leader have the power to make the
change in organisational culture as they can make the employees to communicate effective by
forming the proper way of communication which is possible with the power. The
communication among the employees will reduce the conflicts and contribute in improving
the productivity (Brady, 2017).
Employee engagement: - Power can contribute effectively in forming the organisational
culture with the help of the proper employee engagement. Every business maintains diversity
at their workplace and power of leader or manager is used effectively in engaging employees
by taking different initiative (Fiske & Hancock, 2016). Power helps the managers to value

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their employees, listening to their suggestions towards the change in culture, processes and
working. Along with this, power remains in the hand of manager through which they can see
every employee in equal manner. This employee engagement contributes effectively in
improving the profit of company, enhance performance and become source for competitive
advantage (Cascio, 2015). However, politics affects employee engagement as people want to
set their career due to which they show that work done by other person is not better. This
means that they try to affect the overall value of other employees in front of them.
Manipulation: - Power and politics together can influence the organisational culture due to
high level of manipulations. The power influences the employees which made the changes in
their thinking process. The superior include managers, executives and other who make use of
their power in communicating the wrong things to employees which makes them against the
actions of high authority (Bozeman, 2017). This shows politics and power contributes in
influencing the employees and leads to negative culture. The productivity that relies on the
culture of company gets influence and they won’t be able to perform well.
Career opportunities: - In business, there are career opportunities which everyone want to
grab which will equip them with power. To attain this power, employees of company make
use of politics to grab the career opportunities in which they form the good terms with the
high authority (Bratton & Gold, 2017).
Sources of Power
Legitimate power: - The power of legitimate is commonly known as positional power which
is hold by person in organisation because of legitimate. The manager of the company who
leads a team has particular responsibilities with this they have right to delegate the different
task to his subordinates. This source of power comes with the position which could be used to
influence the benefits for department as well as for enhancing performance (Bratton & Gold,

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2017). For instance; CEO of company can make use of their positional power to use it for
improving operations in which they have new processes and technology that can contribute in
enhancing the performance.
Reward power: - Reward power relies upon on extend to which one has control over
different rewards which are majorly valued by another. This power can contribute effectively
in influencing the performance of personnel considerably (Omisore, & Nweke, 2014). For
example; manager of McDonald’s keeps the power to give the rewards as well as recognition
to employees who perform well. If in case manager of company gives reward to one of the
employee then that employee performance will get improved. However, on the other hand,
the other employees will get negatively affected.
Referent power: - This source of power remains that resultant of the personality of person.
The relationship with the person forms with co-workers as well as charisma with such sort of
person is able to present him to others which lead to rise in certain level of approachability
and respect towards the person (Merchant, 2019). The leaders and board members of
company have this power that they can attract the other employees to get motivated towards
the work and contribute in achieving the goals. For instance; CEO of Apple Company has
power to attract their employees with their power of speech towards the work.
Expert power: - The expert power is based on belief that can influence with some relevant
expertise or the particular knowledge that other does not have. It is considered as personal
power rather than organisation power. This power contribute in improving the performance
of employees as subject matter expert of company provide the guidance to their team
accordingly they perform the work (Brenyah, & Obuobisa-Darko, 2017).
Coercive power: - This is another source of power which is opposite of reward power as it
has the ability to influence the punishment. The manger as well as assistant manager keeps

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power that they can punish employees who don’t follow the obligations which generally
include the plans and policies of the company. The policies of company are required to be
followed, employees who don’t follow the same gets the punishment.
Study of power and politics could influence leadership behaviour and improve
organisational culture
It has been found that the study related to the power and politics could lead to influence on
behaviour of leadership and leads to improvement in culture of organisation.
 It is recommended to remain fair and honest with employees as study of power and
politics shows could affect behaviour of leadership in negative terms also which
means that they can use their power to change the mind or for manipulating the
people. This study shows that the power comes with the position and this position
leads to politics in which people try to conduct inequality, discrimination and many
others.
 It is recommended to bring the creativity within organisation which is possible with
the study of power and politics that could influence the leadership behaviour. The
leader is the one who leads to the creativity within the company if they have the
power to do so. This will make employees to think different and perform the
operations. In addition, this will improve the culture and makes the culture more
creative.
Importance and complexity of leadership behaviour and it influences organizational
structure and performance
The leadership behaviour is very important but with this it can be said that it remains
complex. The leaders as well as their leadership skills perform the vital role that contributes

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to the growth of business. The leadership refers to the process that leads to influence on the
behaviour of people in such a manner that it strive enthusiastically and willingly for the
accomplishment of objectives related to group (Antonakis, & Day, 2017). This behaviour is
essential as this help to form the trust and integrity among the employees towards the
company. The behavioural complexity is considered as the capacity of the leader to get
involved in the wide repertoire of behaviour (Grint, Jones, Holt & Storey, 2016). This can be
evidence that it also involve the ways with the help of which leaders coach people and
provide inspiration. This becomes the complex in leadership behaviour because once
behaviour should be that they can listen to other which makes them understand the behaviour
of other people which is required to be changed. This becomes complex as diverse people
have different understanding and behaviour of leadership doesn’t support such behaviour.
This trust, integrity, coach people and provide inspiration are ways through which
organisational structure becomes strong (Tong & Arvey, 2015). The trust of employees
makes the leader to remain on that position and makes the structure strong. In addition, this
leadership behaviour can contribute in improving the performance of employees working for
achieving aim and objectives as they will able to use their skills by keeping the trust. Along
with this, employees have the talent to coach people and offer inspiration to support the
working.

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Conclusion
In end of report, this can be concluded that power, politics and culture are interrelated
terms of the business which can lead to the influence on the organisational performance. This
has been found that politics as well as power-play majorly influences the culture of company.
This culture can influence the performance of company and with this sources of power are
discussed that leads to the influence on the department of business. In addition, study of
power and politics could influence leadership behaviour and improve organisational culture.
In the end, the importance as well as complexity of behaviour of leadership is defined which
influence the structure.

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References
Antonakis, J., & Day, D. V. (Eds.). (2017). The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
Bozeman, A. B. (2017). Politics and culture in international history: from the ancient Near
East to the opening of the modern age. Routledge.
Brady, R. (2017). Business as a System of Power. Routledge.
Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2017). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Brenyah, R. S., & Obuobisa-Darko, T. (2017). Organisational Culture and Employee
Engagement within the Ghanaian Public Sector. Review Pub Administration
Manag, 5(233), 2.
Cascio, W. F. (2015). Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill.
Fiske, J., & Hancock, B. H. (2016). Power plays power works. Routledge.
Grint, K., Jones, O. S., Holt, C., & Storey, J. (2016). What is leadership. The Routledge
companion to leadership, 3.
Merchant, P. (2019). 5 Sources of Power in Organizations. Retrieved from:
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/5-sources-power-organizations-14467.html
Omisore, B. O., & Nweke, A. N. (2014). The influence of power and politics in organizations
(Part 1). International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social
Sciences, 4(7), 2222-6990.
Saleem, H. (2015). The impact of leadership styles on job satisfaction and mediating role of
perceived organizational politics. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 172, 563-
569.

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Tong, Y. K., & Arvey, R. D. (2015). Managing complexity via the competing values
framework. Journal of Management Development, 34(6), 653-673.
Western, S. (2019). Leadership: A critical text. SAGE Publications Limited.