Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Leadership - Essay Example This system is clearly working since Employee 1 is doing more than the minimum with the aim of accessing the end-year bonus. The second source of power in an organization is expert power, where an individual possesses significant knowledge or skills in a certain domain in the organizations operations. In most cases, the individual performs a duty or responsibility that others cannot undertake to the same level, and hence is an important asset to the organization. Since the organization does not wish to lose such an individual, it seeks to make them comfortable and thus submits to their requests. Employee 2 draws his power from being the only expert accountant in Corporate A. Since he is the only individual who can prepare the company’s financial statement he has negotiated for a 4 day work-week that is inaccessible for the rest of the employees in the accounting department. His being the only Certified Public Accountant is a source of power within the organization. The other b asis of power in organizations stems from personal characteristics. Having individual special qualities such as charisma and people skills results in admiration from the rest of the workforce and management and thus places one in positions from which they can gain audience within the organization. Charismatic qualities make certain employees convincing enough to side with, besides making their ideas attractive. This is certainly the case for Employee 3 who despite having not been in Corporate A longer than the other employees is already influential in the company. The rest of the employees are attracted to his positive and charismatic personality, and this is a source of power to him as we can see his project idea being spiritedly adopted by the department. Coercive sources of power are felt in the case where leaders create the perception of threats to the employees. This can either be through making others believe that the individual may implement punitive measures, reprimand them or withdraw certain advantages. Individuals can also coerce the management to listen to their wishes for example through threatening to withdraw service through labor unions. The marketing manager clearly coerces his staff members to work beyond the minimum through threatening to withdraw end year bonuses which for individuals like Employee 1 are absolutely crucial if they are to afford certain desired things. The last source of power is legitimate/positional power which is wielded by leaders within organizations by virtue of being appointed to head other employees. The extent of positional power is dependent on the position one holds, for instance middle level managers, senior managers among others. Corporate A scenario presents three examples of positional power in the marketing manager, the accounting department manager and the sales manager who lead employees in their respective department. Relationship between Dependency and Power According to Murphy and Willmott (2009) there i s a relationship between power and dependency because the power resides implicitly in another person’s dependency. Examples of this can be clearly seen in Corporate A, where the marketing manager wields power on employees who are dependent on him due to his discretion in distributing rewards. Due to the various sources of power within