Organizations wield different types of power to influence their business. Within an organization, there is normally a power structure- either formal or informal- that wields the power to influence an organization’s culture. Social networks within an organization can also create informal power for those leading the social networks. Cairns (2017) observes that some people seek to develop social networks within organizations to wield social power over others. The author further posits that given that not everyone does exactly what they are expected to do, the management normally uses various types of power to frame employees’ behavior and conduct.
The formal structure at the United States National Park Service explains why the organization has bureaucratic culture. This has stifled innovation, thereby leading to the high staff turnover because today’s employees want an environment that embraces innovative ideas.
Cairns (2017) define politics as actions by members of an organization that are perceived to be not only self directed, but also aimed at furthering a person’s own interests, without regard for the interests or well-being of other members or the organization.
Common examples of politics in an organization include withholding of information from colleagues, failure to enforce policies appropriately, shifting blame as well as maligning others in order to look better. Alsalamah (2015), in his support, posits that highly political organizations normally create a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity due to the fact that organizational members cannot effectively identify which of their actions will be recognized, rewarded or punished.
There are various individual and organizational factors that can influence political behavior within an organization. Individual factors include internal locus of control, organizational investment, and expectations of success as well as perceived job alternatives. Organizational factors include reallocation of resources, low trust, democratic decision making, role ambiguity, self-serving managers and promotion opportunities. Organizational factors like low trust and lack of promotion opportunities at the National Park Service can explain the organizations culture of high employee turnover.
The coercive power base is dependent on fear. An employee can react to this power out of fear of the negative consequences that might happen in case one does not comply. It rests on the threat of applying physical sanctions like infliction of pain or forceful control of basic psychological or safety needs (Lunenburg, 2012). The National Park Service management can use threats like salary cut and leave cut to improve employee performance. Managers need to be strict with employees and should expect professionalism as well as timely completion of tasks in the agency. If utilized optimally, coercive power can improve employee performance and challenge them to achieve better performance.
This is the opposite of coercive power. Employee compliance is based on the leaders’ ability to distribute valuable rewards. In an organization, the rewards can be in monetary form, favorable performance appraisal, friendly working environment, interesting work assignments, preferred work life balance and promotions (Lunenburg, 2012). The National Park Service management can give employees valuable rewards for performance improvement. Rewards like a friendly working environment, employee acceptance, preferred work life balance and praise may play important role in enhancing employee morale and performance.
Also known as positional power, legitimate power is the power that a person possesses because of his or her positional in an organization’s hierarchy. It includes acceptance by organizational members of the authority of a given position. For instance, when a chief executive officer of an organization speaks all employees including senior managers must not only listen but also comply (Lunenburg, 2012). With this in mind, the executive management at National Park Service should use their positional power to articulate the organizational goals and employee contributions towards meeting the goals.
This is the power that a person wields because of his or her expertise, knowledge and/or special skills. It is has become a powerful source of influence in organizations. With the growth of job specialization, organizations are increasing depending on experts to attain their goals (Lunenburg, 2012). Expert power can act as stepping stone for workers at the National Service Park to acquire legitimate power. Acceptable demonstration of expert power should lead to promotion, making an employee indispensable to the agency.
A person possesses referent power as a result of his or her personality. A leader can exercise power over persons who admire and want to identify with him or her because they want to please the leader. In nutshell, this kind of power results out of the admiration of another person and the desire to emulate the person (Lunenburg, 2012). Referent power explains why organizations pay some people, especially celebrities, millions of dollars for product endorsement. Charismatic leaders at the National Park Service can use referent power to exercise control over workers who do want to emulate them to attain higher performance.
The task force recommends that the National Park Service management should assess the impact of power and politics on leadership behavior. Alsalamah (2015) found that the distribution of power and political framework in an organization have negative and positive consequences on organizational leadership and culture. Powerful chief executive officers have powers to align their organizations towards achieving set objectives and goals. For instance, Steve Jobs used his extraordinary powers in Apple incorporation to organize the organization toward lofty goals. Apple incorporation is using the autocracy culture because a single person wields all the powers. The researcher furthers asserts that power can be intoxicating as well as devastating when abused, as evidenced in the high profile case of Enron Corporation.
Alsalamah (2015) also found that politics can also influence leadership behavior and organizational culture. Political behavior arises when someone tries to influence others. This can work towards advancing organizational goals. In Apple Incorporation, for instance, involves actions by departments, teams or individual employees to acquire, develop as well as use powers. Whereas, politics may work toward advancing organizational goals, other issues such as backroom dealing, hidden agendas and manipulation are detrimental to an organizations culture. Therefore, it is important for the National Park Service leadership to study the impact of politics and power on leadership behavior and organizational culture. By doing so, the management can eradicate harmful political dealings and powers that may hinder the organization toward realizing its goals and objectives.
The task force advocates for application of the behavioral complexity theory at the agency for better performance. The behavioral complexity theory of leadership argues that leaders ought to exhibit a range of behavioral responses to effectively respond to wide range of unpredictable circumstances or situations. Psychogios and Garev (2015) indicate that this theory draws upon the correlation as well as the communication among the agents of a given system and the complex interactions arising from the need to adapt to the turbulent business environment. It means that leadership is nothing but a complex dynamic process that arises due to relationship between persons and does lie within one individual-the leader. As such leadership is a product exchange of information, inter-agent tension as well as interaction that happens in emergent context. Given that identify formation takes place during the interaction stage, different persons could emerge as leaders in different circumstances. Baltaci and Balci (2017) show that rather than just empowering employees, the complexity leadership theory encourages employees to take the lead and own their leadership in an organization. In this regard, leadership is not just a role that is to be played; instead it emerges through dynamic interactions By acting as a facilitator, a negotiator, a coordinator, a problem solver or an innovator, a leader should always contradictory as well as paradoxical roles to ensure that an organization can effectively adjust to the rising situations.
Effective leaders do not only bring employees together, but also enable them to work as a team to achieve a shared goal. By establishing the organization’s vision, communicating the organization’s strategy and enhancing employee morale, these leaders can realize an organization’s goals and objectives. By aligning employee’s development goals and aspirations to specific, measurable, attainable, realistic as well as timely strategic objectives, these leaders can establish a functional structure within an organization that is conducive for continuous organizational success. Also, by developing leadership dimensions of problem solving ability, self-awareness, personality plus experience, a leader can positively impact the organization’s structure and performance (Psychogios and Garev, 2015).
Regarding the impact of complexity leadership on organizational structure and performance, Psychogios and Garev (2015) find that the complexity leadership approach advocates for the decentralization of innovation as well as self-organization activities to the lower hierarchical levels in an organization, which makes an organization more responsive to the prevailing environment. This is because of amplification of mutual understanding among employees during the interaction process. Complexity leadership theory, as noted, embraces institutionalization of innovation in an organization by manipulating organizational design into different subunits, teams as well as larger departments, all of which must work together in performing various organizational tasks and long term projects. This flexible organizational structure can drive organizations towards success during turbulent business times.
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