Leadership and Organizational Behavior Assignment: Power and Influence

This assignment delves into the concepts of power and influence within the context of organizational behavior. Part A examines different types of power, including legitimate, referent, expert, punishment, and reward power, and analyzes how a team leader utilizes these powers to manage team dynamics and improve performance. The student reflects on the effectiveness of these power tactics, specifically highlighting the use of expert, punishment, and legitimate power. Part B explores the benefits of using multiple sources of influence within a team, recognizing the diverse nature of team members and their varying skills and behaviors. The assignment emphasizes the positive impact of referent power and differentiates between influence and manipulation, underscoring the importance of understanding and discovering, rather than simply convincing others. The student supports their analysis with relevant academic references.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational behavior
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Part A
According to Shenoy there are five types of power namely, legitimate power, referent
power, expert power, punishment power and reward power.
The team leader used punishment power, expert power and legitimate power in the team
which I worked. The observations demonstrated by me were the specific power as expert
because the leader used her power of information regarding the task to make understand the
members, then punishment power was used by the leader such as in a situation where the team
member continuously did the same mistake which for she punished so that it does not get
repeated again (Jones & York, 2016) (Golembiewski, 2018). Similarly, legitimate power was
used when she was assigning the task to the members (Riasi & Asadzadeh, 2016).
The manner in which the team leader was using the powers was effective, as the leader
used the types of power according to the situation where required.
The project manager can improve the performance of the team members by using the
powers effectively because like using legitimate power the team leader can make the work done
by his team member, as he/she will be aware of the skill and the ability of who can perform the
task effectively. Then, using punishment power the team leader can ensure that the team
members know that for any wrong practice they would be penalized (Bélanger et al., 2015). This
way, the powers used at specific and required situations can improve the performance of the
team.

2
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Reference
Bélanger, J. J., Pierro, A., Barbieri, B., De Carlo, N. A., Falco, A., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2015).
Handling conflict at work: The role of fit between subordinates’ need for closure and
supervisors’ power tactics. International Journal of Conflict Management, 26(1), 25-43.
Golembiewski, R. (Ed.). (2018). Current topics in management(Vol. 8). Routledge.
Jones, A. M., & York, S. L. (2016). The Fragile Balance of Power and Leadership. The Journal
of Values-Based Leadership, 9(2), 11.
Riasi, A., & Asadzadeh, N. (2016). How coercive and legitimate power relate to different
conflict management styles: a case study of Birjand high schools. Journal of studies in
Education, 6(1), 147-159.

3
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Part B
There are various benefits that can be gained by using more than one source of influence,
because in a team the members can be vary in nature, skills and behavior, and in order to manage
them it is useful to use various source of influence (Wadsworth & Blanchard, 2015). For
example, a team member can be lazy for which the team leader has to use upward influencing
and other team member must be influenced enough with the peer influencing of the team leader
(Clinton, 2017). These way members vary and in the sense the different ways of influencing will
be significance.
According to me, the referent power is one power that can influence others in a positive
way and gain attention with the ability and the personal characteristics that one have. It will help
to win over the admiration and make others spellbound by creating a degree of respect (Ojo, Ree
& Carretta, 2016).
Influence and manipulation are closely related to each other and interchangeably used.
However, there is a difference between both the words, influence can be termed as discovering
and understanding instead of convincing, while manipulation is disregarding somebody’s talent
or views (McComb, Cagan & Goucher-Lambert, 2018).

4
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Reference
Clinton, J. R. (2017). The making of a leader: Recognizing the lessons and stages of leadership
development. Two Words Publishing, LLC.
McComb, C., Cagan, J., & Goucher-Lambert, K. (2018). Fairness and manipulation: an
empirical study of Arrow's impossibility theorem.
Ojo, A., Ree, M. J., & Carretta, T. R. (2016). Leadership Style and Leader Power. Leadership &
Organizational Management Journal, 2016(1).
Wadsworth, M. B., & Blanchard, A. L. (2015). Influence tactics in virtual teams. Computers in
Human Behavior, 44, 386-393.