Power, Politics & Conflicts in Organizations: A Comprehensive Analysis
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Introduction - Organizational Power Dynamics
Aims and objectives
The main purpose of this study is to examine to what level politics can affect organizational activities. Thus, the main objective of the report is to discuss the power, politics along with conflict affecting the practices of business.
Key concepts and ideas
In this report, the theory of French and raven forms of power will be used to analyze the different perspectives of power within the organization (Kaehne, 2018). Further, it covers the discussion of organizational politics which affects the situation of business and employees. It also includes some conflicts that arise due to political issues in the business.
Use of real-life examples
The organizations will be inspected in terms of principles that are presented in Machiavelli’s The Prince along with the French and Raven pillars of power. Furthermore, we'll there be a discussion about how having political skills can help the company's core accomplishments. Following this, the different kinds of politics along with the impact on the company will be talked in detail. The main concern of the report is the consequences in the organization. At last, it will help to increase the level of self-esteem, writing skills, and learning about to manage the power, politics, and conflicts in workplace.
Academic Analysis - Power
Power in Leadership: Power in leadership is mainly considered as an influence of leaders on their followers as this is one of the major concerns of leadership. In terms of organizational settings leaders must have some extra power for achieving the individuals along with the organizational goals so it is important to motivate team members to take part in all of the activities. Thus, it will ask the team members for help and to take important decisions to ensure the success of the business (Ujjainia, 2013).
Power in business: An individual use many ways to exercise the power over other people and negotiate political connections within the organization. It is an influence behavior and can change the courses of action for getting things done in the business. Furthermore, power is related to somebody's capacity to distribute assets, and control above other people, and leading people is mostly reliant on the availability to make those people do anything that themselves, on the other hand, would never conceive of just doing (Moutsios, 2010). It is self-evident that each business has its organizational climate and style of doing things, and when somebody begins a new job or new position. An individual must be aware of the practices of work.
For understanding the role of power, the theory of French and Raven 6 bases of Power applicable to the business of Metro Bank:
Coercive Power: There is the use of authoritarian leadership for punishing others and people will ignore the leadership in case the power is used more than usual. The annoyance would not be suffered by anyone. Coercion mainly includes forcing activity without the consent of an individual. For example, employees at Metro Bank are affected due to this power of their superiors and it can also cause resentment and highly affect people to leave.
Reward Power: It shows the status of a person when they give rewards to other people. However, the person is responsible for an ability to give opportunity to others. It helps to achieve compliance at Metro Bank and it encourages people to work within the workplace. However, the power of reward reduces over some time but the employees mainly considered it as an entitlement.
Legitimate Power: When an individual has the power to impose their belief and opinion on others is considered legitimate power. The people must believe their leaders since the responsibility is on the leaders to run the business. For example, a governor has the power to rule the nation and should be affected by the public. However, the people impacted by the legitimate power as if someone loses the position it affects their power (Nightingale, 2017).
Expert Power: The expert have huge knowledge and high education who have expertise in solving issues. It can be derived from an individual experience along with their skills and competence and it helps to make or trustful relationship with the other people at Metro Bank. This power helps to can some personal efforts and pitta fits positively on the employees
Referent Power: The influencers or famous people are highly admired by the public. However, people make decisions based on the preferences of influencers. At Metro Bank, the employees who have social media followers are more popular than the others who are considered power or referent which helps to gain a respectful position within the business.
Informational Power: The people who has sensitive knowledge access the ability to control activities with authority. The senior executives at Metro Bank can control the activities in a flow of information for completing the task is considered informational power. It is one of the most important and strong bases for achieving the source of Information and dealing with changes in the business.
Machiavelli’s The Prince
According to the author, power is an essential part of life, and that everything is acceptable in order to achieve it. The most significant aspect is to get actual result of the case. Machiavelli says that it is the situation where an individual do everything to manage the work. The goal should be achieved by those people who are intelligent and clever. The Prince should be able to manage the scenario and be nice with the other contemporaries. However, the leaders need to make suitable choices along with different idea for the aspect of authority. The strategies of Machiavelli are used by the organisation as the power is a simple task but it is tough to maintain it.
Politics
Organizational politics can be termed as self-interest or an agenda a person in an organization they are not bothered about other people and their effect on the goals of the company. However, it is mainly concerned with different influencing tactics along with the activities which happen to return some personal control within the workplace (Cacciattolo, 2014). In some of the cases, it has been analyzed that employees of the company use politics as a tool for misusing their power and can some extreme popularity in the business. While doing business the word politics main leads to some negativity and it creates and loss of productivity.
Identity actions involve stepping around the line of authority to gain permission for a particular project, going around the wrong people to get special privileges, or pushing rising management shortly before they make a promotional choice.
Legitimate political behavior is a major part of the organization and it is confirmed by the experience of managers. Sometimes, it is considered an ethical part of the business and it is healthy for running a business. Political activities are sometimes considered a game and it overtakes the different rules set by the organization which are not even clear and explicit at some point in time (McDonald, Thompson, and O'Connor, 2016).
The organizational politics main outcome in terms of a rational basis for the competitive advantage and the individual at workplace are politics skilled as well as managed to get success in such environment is beneficial for the business. However, the managers in the workplace can also manage the politics with people for handling the level of justice as well as equality in the workplace that leads to achieving political activities of the organization.
Role of organizational politics in organization
In this, Organizational politics affects the overall productivity of an individual negatively. By taking the real-life example of HSBC Bank in the UK, the politics within an organization lower the output of an individual. It is observed that the individual at Bank who play some politics are paying less attention to the work (Taplin, 2022). However, they are less interested in doing work and they are more interested in criticizing other people (Latif, Abideen, and Nazar, 2011).
As a result of these political aspects, the employees at the workplace fail to achieve the goals in a given time frame and it affects the overall productivity of the business. However, it also impacts the concentration level of employees and hence it reduces their reputation which affects their relationship with the managers.
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Conflict
Nature of Conflict
In a company, there is no guarantee of achieving the objectives that arises certain disagreements at workplace. The employees need to solve the issues for meeting the purpose of business. There are internal as well as external conflicts both are present in the situation of organization (Mostenska, and Ralko, 2014). Further, the different opinions and perspectives are main reason behind the conflicts where if one side is victorious and there will be solution to disagreements. The employees must have an ability to solve the conflicts at workplace and identify best solution to the issues.
How conflicts arise
Conflicts within the organization can be caused due to some reasons like status inconsistencies, communication issues, less common performance levels, along with individual differences. Conflicts arise in the workplace due to some individuals as well as groups of people are frustrated with each other and it affects the motivation to achieve the goals (Pakarinen, and Virtanen, 2016). However, it can be a problematic situation for the business due to the Employee’s communication gap as well as personal issues.
Impact of conflicts on the outcome of the organization
There is a positive as well as negative aspects of the conflict within the organization. At some point, it is considered a strength as well as a weakness for the business activities and needs to consider it is a challenge for the future performance of the business. It is considered a fast action between the employees which required a self-evaluation along with the improvement in the decision-making process so that it can lead to Healthy competition between the employees at the workplace (Isa, 2015). The positive nature of the conflict is considered as a General conflict that helps to improve the performance of the employees and it contributes to the positive behavior between the managers and employees. However, sometimes it can motivate the employees the tool to solve the issues at the workplace by brainstorming the ideas at the time of identifying the issues.
The conflicts at the workplace bring together the employees so that they can learn about each other in a better way. It helps to make improvements in future communication and they can take better opinions from each other (Mills, and Mene, 2018). It increases the level of stress among the employees as well as managers and it highly of their personal life also. However, it affects productivity and people try to avoid office meetings as well as experience some issues in meeting new people.
Link theory to practice
To use real-life organizational examples on demonstrating the theory of power, politics, and conflicts which are as follows:
The power, politics and conflicts in the real life organizations are considered as the mimic of dynamic of power, politics and conflict in the personal life. There is no universal level of influence among employees in a company. There is the power of leaders to influence the behavior of their subordinates. Those doing the work precisely and successfully will be remunerated for the work they've done. The politics is not always considered as a negative aspect. The organisational politics may be used for the approaches that helps in achieving outcomes in different situations. Working is a place of assembly persons with a extensive variety of perspectives, ideas, and goals.
Power: For understanding the theory of power, taking the example of Metro Bank of the UK as power plays a major role to conduct the activities and getting things done. The theory of power used at Metro Bank helps to balance the values which are mainly held by the competing participants in terms of the relationship (Alsop, 2014). The alignment of the different ideas at the workplace is mainly based on the culture of Metro Bank as it concentrates on the position of the people. However, the application of contingency theory power at Metro Bank helps to identify the capability of an individual and assign the tasks.
Politics: Politics is connected with power and taking the example of Metro Bank, politics is highly affecting business activities. In terms of politics at HSBC Bank, the organizational activities are affected by the different types of terms that are related to politics and people try to misuse them for achieving the political goals. It occurs due to some of the traits used by the employees for achieving small objectives (Moutsios, 2010).
Conflicts: To use a real example, the Metro bank faces conflicts where one employee is accused of discriminating against another as it highly affects the image of the company. The poor communication between the employees of Metro Bank and taking it in a wrong manner develops tensions among the people. However, the way of working is different for all of the employees which clashes their opinion and they can't put their viewpoints which leads to the conflicts within the workplace. Overall has an impact on the productivity of Metro Bank and needs to solve the issues within the proper time frame (Bogova, 2021). Thus, it is essential to talk to the employees regarding their issues and provide an appropriate solution to the conflicts.
Conclusion
From the above study and using real-life business examples, it can be concluded that power and politics play an essential role in the development and growth of the business. It is a part of the business that cannot be detached in any situation. It gives a detailed analysis of the concept of power, politics, and the conflicts that arise within the organization that provides an ability to achieve the aims and objectives of the report. The detailed analysis helps to understand the concept in a more precise manner.
However, through this report, there is an identification of issues related to power, politics, and conflicts including coping with uncertainty within business activities. Leaders at workplace have crucial power more than subordinates which enables the situation as per the command. The ability of manager is to give direction to the political landscape for the advancement and success. Thus, it is significant that if anyone not giving proper response which affect the position of people.
Reflective Statement
a) Academic
As per my learning, it increase my academic skills and knowledge regarding the topic of politics and power. The research helps me to enhance my area of knowledge that brings changes in my behavior. It also increase my capacity to handle the situation and bring changes for the time management activities. Further, it enables me to analyze the problem and identify appropriate solutions for the issues in the research. I learn about the role of power, politics and conflicts impact on the organization that is very important to understand for the future perspective. It motivates me to do research on the topic with an appropriate level of understanding regarding the power at workplace.
b) Practice
Doing this report helps to make improvements in my academic writing skills which is one of the most important parts of an academic course. It increases my knowledge as well as skills in writing and learning about new topics regarding the conflicts of power and politics within the organization. It assonance is my knowledge about the different areas of skills and it creates a personal development as a person. However, the study helps me to analyze my capacity to learn new things and describe them in a form of an assignment. It also develops my approach to writing assignments with creativity and management of activities (Sadikovna, and et.al., 2021).
c) Personal
This report helps me to understand that it increases my knowledge of areas regarding power, politics, and conflicts and their role within the organization. At the initial stage of this report, I was quite nervous about the things like how to research a specific topic. But after conducting it, it increases my level of confidence and it also helps to build good relations with other people (Lejeune, Beausaert, and Raemdonck, 2021). Further, it increases my ability to perform tasks and I learn about the time management activities that play a significant role in the completion of a report. It changes me as a person and now I am very focused on my studies and career to achieve my goals.
Moreover, if I will have a chance to use power in my career, I can make use of it for a good purpose only, I can make use of it by reducing the barriers, and encouraging other people to achieve the objectives of the business. Further, I will try to unite the differences among the people which are affected by the various opinions of people. However, will try to offer various perks to the employees as it will be beneficial for the business also (Orlov, and et.al., 2018). Thus, I will make appropriate use of power within the workplace and provide benefits to all people without any misuse.
References
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Bogova, H.S., 2021. RESOLVING ORGANISATIONAL CONFLICTS THROUGH MEDIATION. In European Scientific Conference (pp. 158-161).
Cacciattolo, K., 2014. Defining organisational politics. European Scientific Journal.
Isa, A.A., 2015. Conflicts in organizations: causes and consequences. Journal of Educational Policy and Entrepreneurial Research (JEPER), 2(11), pp.54-59.
Kaehne, A., 2018. Values, interests and power: the politics of integrating services. Journal of Integrated Care.
Latif, A., Abideen, Z.U. and Nazar, M.S., 2011. Individual political behavior in organizational relationship. J. Pol. & L., 4, p.199.
McDonald, P., Thompson, P. and O'Connor, P., 2016. Profiling employees online: shifting public–private boundaries in organisational life. Human Resource Management Journal, 26(4), pp.541-556.
Mills, B.R. and Mene, C.T., Conflicts and Its Management In An Organisation: A Theoretical Review.
Mostenska, T. and Ralko, O., 2014. CONFLICTS IN ORGANISATION. FEATURES OF CORPORATE CONFLICTS MANAGEMENT. Transformations in business & economics, 13(2).
Moutsios, S., 2010. Power, politics and transnational policy?making in education. Globalisation, societies and Education, 8(1), pp.121-141.
Nightingale, A.J., 2017. Power and politics in climate change adaptation efforts: Struggles over authority and recognition in the context of political instability. Geoforum, 84, pp.11-20.
Pakarinen, M. and Virtanen, P., 2016. Solving organisational conflicts in public matrix organisation. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal.
Ujjainia, G., 2013. Personality, Attitude, Power and Politics Affecting Organisational Behavior. Available at SSRN 2196995.
Taplin, N., 2022. Breaking Up HSBC Wouldn’t Solve Its Political Woes. [Online] Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/breaking-up-hsbc-wouldnt-solve-its-political-woes-11651752940 [Accessed at 13 May 2022]
Sadikovna, M.A., Razzokovna, O.G., Ilhamovna, I.S. and Muzaffarovna, A.N., 2021. THE PLACE OF ART IN PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT. European science, (2 (58)), pp.98-100.
Lejeune, C., Beausaert, S. and Raemdonck, I., 2021. The impact on employees’ job performance of exercising self-directed learning within personal development plan practice. The international journal of human resource management, 32(5), pp.1086-1112.
Orlov, A.A., Pazukhina, S.V., Yakushin, A.V. and Ponomareva, T.Y.M., 2018. A study of first-year students’ adaptation difficulties as the basis to promote their personal development in university education. Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, 11(1), pp.71-83.
