How to wield power for higher staff productivity

Use of coercive power results in staff resistance that might hurt company profit. PHOTO | FOTOSEARCH 

By SCOTT BELLOWS

In Summary

• Inside organisations, employees can quickly name the leaders who might force their power over others.

Power. Some leaders crave it. Some managers utilise it sparingly. But the issue of who holds power over one another permeates all aspects of human society.

From the time you are born, your parents hold power over you that changes in nature as you grow older.

Teachers in classrooms hold different power over their students. When stopped by traffic police, they hold certain powers over you. The list goes on and on over multitudes of types of power in society.

Business Talk first covered leadership power in the Business Daily in 2013.

Inside organisations, employees can quickly name the leaders who might force their power over others.

Usually observers think of power in the traditional sense of given authority being exercised forcefully. However, there exist different power models for you to exert your authority to lead your teams.

When you first take the job as the boss of a company, what first instincts do you possess? Do you desire to hold a staff meeting and remind employees of your authority as CEO? Do you meet employees and try to gain their trust, admiration, and respect?

You have five different options to utilise: expert power, referent power, legitimate power, reward power, and coercive power.

Expert power derives from your experience and ability in the field that you lead. Staff recognise a leader’s expertise and follow him or her based on their respect for the leader’s knowledge.

Referent power originates from staff loyalty and happiness with their boss.

If employees like their leader on a personal level and want to please him or her, then the boss maintains referent power over the employees.

Next, you may utilise the legitimate power entrusted to you in your position by the shareholders of the company. As the CEO of a firm, you hold power through the facilities of your office. You may hire and fire or promote and demote.

Reward power centres on your ability to reward employees for good work in their jobs. Rewards range from salary raises, bonuses, awards, recognition or other benefits.

Lastly, your desire may lay in coercive power. As a leader, you have the choice to coerce and force employees to your way of thinking. You may make work and life difficult for employees if they do not act as you choose.

Stop and think. All too often, leaders here in East Africa resort to the “big boss” method: “I say it so you must do it because I am the boss.”

Such a scenario clearly utilises legitimate power. But if you could only implement two types of leadership power in your company, which of the five options would you choose?

Research shows us that expert power and referent power lead to employee commitment. Legitimate power and reward power results in employee compliance with your goals.

Then coercive power builds employee resistance against you.
Clearly employee commitment leads to better company performance than mere staff compliance.

Bosses should avoid employee resistance, obviously, at all costs. So, as a leader in your company, lead through referent power and expert power that build employee commitment that yields higher firm profits.

How do you improve your referent and expert power? Researcher Florence Stone shows us practical steps: Believe in your team members’ ability to succeed. Exercise patience with your employees. Give staff time to learn. Provide direction and structure.

Teach employees new skills in small easy to master steps. Ask employees meaningful questions that challenge them to think in new ways. Share information with team members, sometimes with the only purpose to build rapport. Provide timely feedback to employees. Show a sense of humour.

Focus on objective results. Then never forget to acknowledge good performance.

Want to rate your own boss’ power? You may take an assessment adapted by Dr Andrew Dubrin based on Journal of Psychology methodology by searching on Google.

Now, if we look at examples from the public space, write down which of the five leadership powers you believe the following leaders primarily utilised or utilise.

President Uhuru Kenyatta
Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga
Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai
President John Magufuli
Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump

Answers: both President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga utilise referent power as the source of their power. They both do well interpersonally with voters and have high likability ratings.

The late Maathai wielded vast expert power. President Magufuli of Tanzania exerts his legitimate power to bring in sweeping changes. Mr Collymore arguably uses his power of giving rewards to motivate his employees.

Finally, Mr Trump famously threatens to sue detractors, which highlights negative coercive power usage.

Discuss and debate Kenyan power with other Business Daily readers through #KenyaPower on Twitter.

Stay tuned for the next USIU-Business Daily Public Lecture on professional writing on Saturday, September 24 at 2pm.