Wednesday, November 26, 2008

POWER AND LEADERSHIP

This lesson first defines power and distinguishes it from authority. Then it identifies sources of power and explains how power is used in organizations. Finally, it presents the political perspective of power in today’s organizations. The underlying premise of this lesson is that acquisition and distribution of power is a natural process in any organization. Power is a determinant of goals to be achieved and of how resources will be distributed. These, in turn, have far reaching implications for an organization ‘s performance and satisfaction and organizational effectiveness.
There is no universally accepted meaning of power has more diverse meanings than any other concept in organizational behaviour. In general it refers to a capacity that one has to influence the behaviour of an other so that the other does something which would not be done otherwise.
A few of the definitions on power are presented here to capture the wide range of the meanings it has assumed over a period of time.

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