1 Power in Action Individual Situational Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

In a business, the most important source of generating significant revenue is its sales department. Despite strategic management of the sales department, the individual power of the head or leader of the sales department is also of great importance to affect the performance of salesmen and the overall sales of the company. Every person has a specific degree of power that he/she can use to influence the actions of others. Particularly, those who are leading a group of people have more power to influence them. Power when combines with politics become more influential as compared to using it alone, however, in some situations the two can work perfectly if used separately (Fairholm, 2009).

I am working in an appliance manufacturing company and I successfully achieved sales production targets, and have also maintained a 20 percent annual growth in sales. I have successfully organized and carried out more than ten distributor conferences. I have also helped 3,000 salesmen to perform well through providing them training in the management courses that I have learned during my university.

For influencing others with power and politics, the most important thing is the goals one want to achieve. My goals are very clear and I want to keep my track record successful by achieving annual growth in sales as well as to become a better leader for salesmen working under my supervision. I am also eager to be noticed by the top management as a potential, confident and hard working employee and have been awarded with a number of promotions. With using my power together with the politics in the organization where I am working, I can improve the performance of my subordinates to contribute significantly in making the fortune of the company (Fairholm, 2009).

The superior performance of my team members will automatically improve my own performance, confidence level and achievements, which will be noticed by the top management. In any department, it is not possible to get the desired results or continues success without the effective use of power and politics.

Prior to use power and politics in my situation or in any situation, the most important thing is to understand the concerns of the team members because without getting an understanding to their hot buttons, it is hard to influence them effectively. Most of my team members are salesmen who can perform well to get a reward for showing high efficiencies. Moreover, positive relationship, encouragement through positive words can also influence them to show high efficiency. In this situation, the use of power together with politics will be a good choice to influence my team. Most managers in my organization are using Coercive power which resulted in lots of tensions and conflicts between managers and team members. I am willing to use referent power and expert power to influence my team members (Soranastaporn, n.d.).

The use of referent power will help me in building strong relationship with my team members as well as will allow me to improve their morale and efficiency by giving them a certain degree of freedom and respect. On the other hand, with the use of expert power, I can then convince them to change their methods and approaches for improving their efficiency. The positive consequences of the use of power will enhance the performance of my team members that will automatically enhances my performance. I can create a sound and healthy working environment by providing them a little degree of freedom.

On the negative side, the use of power and politics in this situation could potentially create problems for me from other managers because most of them are using Coercive power. Moreover, not all employees have a same level of understanding and potential to complete a task and some can simply be controlled by Coercive or Legitimate power. The use of referent power and expert power can be a tough task to control or influence such employees that can greatly affect the performance of others as well as can create many other problems for me (Soranastaporn, n.d.).

To handle the situation effectively, it will be a best option to use Coercive power for lazy bones. It is not a very difficult task to identify such people and in two or three days a manager can easily identify them..................

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