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Power or mere Authority?

It is one of the most frequent thought people get in their mind about a Manager that s/he possess more power than his/her sub-ordinates. How true is that? I'd say not at all. In fact I'd say Sub-ordinates possess more power than their manager. A genuine question comes, how?

Okay now listen, what are the responsibilities of Manager, to get the work done, to keep the sub-ordinates happy, content and motivated, OR just to control their activities. Many managers would think they have got authority to control the activities of sub-ordinates and in turn they have got more power, and as soon as this thought came in his/her mind he has chose the path of self destruction.

Let us think from the perspective, you are a Manager and you need to get a work done from one of your employees but unfortunately that employee couldn't care less about that and he refused to do the task.
What options you have?
- Recommend HR to fire the employee,
- Threaten him about appraisal or
- You’d try to persuade him by understanding the reasons behind his response.
If you chose to go with first two options, you are doomed, you are nothing but going to alleviate the employee and that is because of wrong measures of yours. Instead, if you go with 3rd option, you still have chance to get your task done.

So what was the gap between you and your sub-ordinate which was obstructing the communication between you and that person? Motivation and Authority; you had got the authority but your sub-ordinate didn't have motivation to do that task. So now let us go back to main subject and try to define the Power.

“Power is nothing but an alignment of the authority you have with the motivation your sub-ordinates possess. Without this alignment, you are always less powerful then your sub-ordinates despite of you having more authority.”

How ironic it is? more authority, more responsibilities but still less power. Yes that is the truth and as soon as you realize this you have better chances of becoming a better manager. In fact than instead of Manager, you can call yourself a leader.

So if you are manager or leader, don't think you have got more power with your chair because that chair is of 'authority with many responsibilities' not of power.
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Comments

  1. Anonymous23 July 2011 at 03:46

    I find it very near to reality. However most of the managers I know never care about this alignment, in-fact, they might have not thought about this relationship ever.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7 August 2011 at 11:53

    So does it means that as a manager u can not do any thing abt ur subordinate bad behavior...There should be some way out to deal with trouble makers....

    ReplyDelete
  3. An Ordinary Guy17 September 2012 at 02:27

    Definitely you have and for that you need to ensure you are not a collaborative leader not a dictator. Every word you speak need to be weighed by visualizing what would you feel when you are at the receiving end of that message.

    This should cover 90% cases, for 10% you will have to use judgement and guage the situation. That is why we say Management is as much Art as much it is science.

    ReplyDelete

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