Power and leadership

Introduction:

There are many forces that drive the people to work successfully in organizations. The various forces that affect an individual in an organization are Learning, Perception, Motivation, Teams and Groups, Theory and Structure, Power, Leadership and the business Culture. There are two major factors or forces that control or drive the efficiency of the people to work successfully in different organizations. The two forces that drive the people for their success and hence the organization's success are Power and Leadership. The main reason for considering both power and leadership are that they are mutually cohesive. Both the power and leadership are interrelated in any organization and go hand in hand together. A leader has his capacity to lead a team or an organization and to do so he needs the power that could help him to retain the focus of the people working in an organization. Power is something which is not considered as the authority but is defined something that is related to legitimacy. Both the leadership and power would help the teams in any organization to share the skills and responsibilities, development of synergy and accountability, and the mutual flow of understanding among the subordinates that is required. This paper would clearly discuss on the power and leadership skills and why both these are necessary for driving the people to work successfully in the organizations.

Power:

Typically power is defined against the authority around the axis of legitimacy by majority of the organizational theorists. Hence power is generally regarded and considered by the organizations as homogenous and coherent entities in which these capacities occur. Power over the years has evolved as a well developed and well structured in any organization. Pfeffer (1981) defines power as something which evolves in any organizations due to the division of labor which occurs according to the task specialization and implemented. Power however in organizations is classified into legitimate power and illegitimate power according to Clegg (1989). But on the other hand legitimate power deals with the known responsibilities and the power that is entitled to a manager while the illegitimate power corresponds to the structure of dominancy in any organization. Clegg, (1989) has also clearly stated that the power in the organizations is not only the positions of the authorities to whom it has been provided. Rather power also will include various factors such as the practices that are being handled by the person responsible, and the discretion of the person having the power. Power should not be considered as a legitimate force that keeps and controls the resources in an organization. Also power is not something that pertains to only one specific person or an agency. Instead, power is something that constitutes the forces of an organization, the forces of the various resources in an organization put together.(Clegg, 1989)

Power and People in an Organization:

There are various sources of power that an individual gets from in an organization. The various sources are position, personal characteristics, expertise and opportunity to control information. There are also various bases from which the power evolves and those bases are coercion, reward, persuasion and knowledge. There is always dependency that is created to individuals in various organizations. The dependency created could always be satisfied from the source of power. The dependency is created through importance, scarcity and non substitutability. The usage of power among the people is mostly because of reasoning, assertiveness, friendliness, bargaining, coalition and authority. Coalition is one another factor where two or more people who combine their power to push for or support their demands. Power is just influencing people and influencing people to do various things that they won't do. The power could be classified into various kinds which can be classified as coercive power, reward power, persuasive power, knowledge power, position power, personal power, expert power and opportunity power. The various factors influencing people in an organization could be classified into individual factors and organizational factors. The individual factors includes various factors such as high self-monitors, internal locus of control, high match, organizational investment, perceived job alternatives and expectations of success. The organizational factors include the factors such as relocation of resources, low trust, role ambiguity, reward practices, democratic decision making, and high performance pressures. Both these broad classification of factors have a high impact over the people in an organization and help them to perform successfully in an organization. (Robbins, 2004)

Leadership:

According to Harry Truman Leadership could be defined as something that could get someone to do what they don't want to do or what they don't like to do and making them to like what they don't like. Leadership is something that has a vision and a leader is someone who keeps the vision both his personal vision as far as the team is concerned and an organization's vision as well. (Kets de Vries, 1994). A good and effective leadership very strongly depends on a very complex pattern of interaction among the leader and his subsidiaries which includes the followers and the team members in an organization. An effective leadership also considers the situation in which a problem happens and has to fulfill two important roles according to Kets de Vries (1994). The two roles as defined by de Vries are charismatic role and the instrumental role. A leader is a visionary who actually impresses his subsidiaries and recharges their attitudes. The leader's charismatic role would encompass the ways in which he creates a vision, empowers his subsidiaries and energizes them to motivate their followers. The instrumental role encompasses the designing of the organization, the control of the people and a rewarding behavior of the people who are involved in the organization. (Kets de Vries, 1994)

Leadership and People in an Organization:

The leadership is the ability of influencing people and others towards the achievement of the goals that contributes to a worthwhile process. There are various traits of a leader such as honesty, self- confidence, ambition, high energy levels, task relevance and knowledge, the desire to lead, and supportive nature of the people. The leadership has 3 dimensions to it. They are the people, the task and the development. An effective leader will always work for the welfare and the support of the people and their development thereby completing the task. An effective group could be formed only with the style of the leader and his interacting with the subordinates which could give the leader the control and the ability to influence the people. A true leader is not transactional, but rather he is transformational. A transformational leader has the ability to transform his or her subordinates in an organization. Leadership creates the personal growth of the people involved in a task, the feedback and coaching that is involved, the skill building and the development activities that helps every individual to transform in an organization. (Robbins, 2004)

Leadership in Tesco:

Consider Sir Terry Leahy, who joined as a marketing executive of Tesco in 1979 who later went on to become the CEO of the company. According to Sir Terry lead has various dictionary meanings such as control, direct etc. But the real definition of lead according to him is "to cause, to act, think, feel or behave in a certain way. The leadership in Tesco is not central. It is not in fact possible for the CEO to sit in a central office in the headquarters and micro manage 0.35 million people across 13 countries. And that is why Tesco has not settled with one leader. Tesco has managed to make many leaders, say thousands of them to manage and control and to lead the people across various geographies. Tesco also spends a great deal of time, money and energy to create such leaders and developing them. This is possible simply just by targeting one in ten people and training them and promoting them. Apart from the internal development the organization is also creating leaders locally thereby helping them to take the leadership close to their customers. The organization also provides path for these leaders to flourish by motivating them to operate in a clear and consistent framework. These leaders are capable of guiding the purpose and the values of the organization. The next successful element for the leadership of the Tesco organizations is by keeping things simple. The leaders here are motivated to do what is expected of them thereby not creating too complex situations which lead to suffocation. So no management jargon is expected of the people and simply the thoughts, simple expressions are communicated across the teams and the subordinates and even to the customers. The next thing that the organization focuses is on creating the leaders among the customers. This could lead to taking the organization by the customers where the company could not reach otherwise. Creating satisfied and loyal customers is what is being focused more in Tesco and this creates a great leadership. (Sir Terry Leahy, 2005)

References:

Judie Hill, 2005. The Path to Leadership- Developing a sustainable model with organizations. Caspian Publishers
Stephen Robbins, 2004, Organizational Behavior, Prentice Hall
Anon., Tesco's Steering Wheel Strategy, Retrieved Jan 3 2010 from http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Business%20Strategy/Tesco%27s%20%27Steering%20Wheel%27%20Strategy%20Business%20Strategy.htm
Liptrot Hannah, 2003, Tesco: Supermarket superpower, Retrieved Jan 3 2010 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4605115.stm
Bruce Temkin, 2008. Tesco Showcases Strategy + Culture, Retrieved Jan 3 2010 from http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/tesco-showcases-strategy-culture/
Robert Heller, 2005, Leadership Development: A new kind of business leader is needed for a new age of business, Retrieved Jan 3 2010 from http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/management/leadership-development.php
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&docId=24202592
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:vz8jkinDSrYJ:www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agp11922/$FILE/ValueChainarticle.pdf+power+and+leadership,+tesco&hl=en&gl=in&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjvoXH-poLzadcP6dTiJX9swUS4wNGoQRo_lgaX7vo2D0gyGFVYU-ysEajHv6fmMznrxf3nphqP4iVyHbf4ct-FbgY6D7IO0OJbpWgyxFgca3abByIxFIUNboamjmrOSaaPLofS&sig=AHIEtbStyOi3iLNLxQl60FIxcG9-JR9Ayw (tesco example)
http://www.tlainc.com/article3.htm (important)
http://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WbvxXPPs1HMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA147&dq=leadership+power+tesco&ots=L9XsCjsBUy&sig=0SlZdiaXchbmf3eRtfQXuDSA2tA#v=onepage&q=tesco&f=false

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