Power and Influence

Where does a leader’s power come from? Do leaders have it, or do followers give it to them? As we will see, the answer may be both . . . and more.

     Something as seemingly trivial as the arrangement of furniture in an office can affect perceptions of another person’s power. One vivid example comes from John Ehrlichman’s book Witness to Power. Ehrlichman described his first visit to J. Edgar Hoover’s office at the Department of Justice. The legendary director of the FBI had long been one of the most powerful men in Washington, DC, and as Ehrlichman’s impressions reveal, Hoover used every opportunity to reinforce that image. Ehrlichman was first led through double doors into a room replete with plaques, citations, trophies, medals, and certificates jamming every wall. He was then led through a second similarly decorated room into a third trophy room, and finally to a large but bare desk backed by several flags and still no J. Edgar Hoover. The guide opened a door behind the desk, and Ehrlichman went into a smaller office, which Hoover dominated from an impressive chair and desk that stood on a dais about six inches high. Erhlichman was instructed to take a seat on a lower couch, and Hoover peered down on Ehrlichman from his own loftier and intimidating place.

   On a more mundane level, many people have experienced a time when they were called in to talk to a boss and left standing while the boss sat behind the desk. Probably few people in that situation misunderstand the power message there. In addition to the factors just described, other aspects of office arrangements also can affect a leader’s or follower’s power. One factor is the shape of the table used for meetings. Individuals sitting at the ends of rectangular tables often wield more power, whereas circular tables facilitate communication and minimize status differentials. However, specific seating arrangements even at circular tables can affect participants’ interactions; often individuals belonging to the same cliques and coalitions will sit next to each other. By sitting next to each other, members of the same coalition may exert more power as a collective group than they would sitting apart from each other. Also, having a private or more open office may not only reflect but also affect power differentials between people. Individuals with private offices can dictate to a greater degree when they want to interact with others by opening or closing their doors or by giving instructions about interruptions. Individuals with more open offices have much less power to control access to them. By being aware of dynamics like these, leaders can somewhat influence others’ perceptions of their power relationship.

   Prominently displaying symbols like diplomas, awards, and titles also can increase one’s power. This was shown in an experiment in a college setting where a guest Lecture to several different classes was introduced in a different way to each. To one group he was introduced as a student; to other groups he was introduced as a lecturer, senior lecturer, or professor, respectively. After the presentation, when he was no longer in the room, the class estimated his height. Interestingly, the same man was perceived by different groups as increasingly taller with each increase in academic status. The “professor” was remembered as being several inches taller than the “student.”

     This finding demonstrates the generalized impact a seemingly minor matter like one’s title can have on others. Another study points out more dramatically how dangerous it can be when followers are overly responsive to the appearances of title and authority. This study took place in a medical setting and arose from concern among medical staff that nurses were responding mechanically to doctors’ orders. A researcher made telephone calls to nurses’ stations in numerous different medical wards. In each, he identified himself as a hospital physician and directed the nurse answering the phone to administer a particular medication to a patient in that ward. Many nurses complied with the request despite the fact it was against hospital policy to transmit prescriptions by phone. Many did so despite never even having talked to the particular “physician” before the call—and despite the fact that the prescribed medication was dangerously excessive, not to mention unauthorized. In fact, 95 percent of the nurses complied with the request made by the most easily falsifiable symbol of authority, a bare title. (See also Highlight 4.2.)

     Even choice of clothing can affect one’s power and influence. Uniforms and other specialized clothing have long been associated with authority and status, including their use by the military, police, hospital staffs, clergy, and so on. In one experiment, people walking along a city sidewalk were stopped by someone dressed either in regular clothes or in the uniform of a security guard and told this: “You see that guy over there by the meter? He’s overparked but doesn’t have any change. Give him a dime!” Whereas fewer than half complied when the requestor was dressed in regular clothes, over 90 percent did when he was in uniform.

    This same rationale is given for having personnel in certain occupations (such as airline crew members) wear uniforms. Besides identifying them to others, the uniforms increase the likelihood that in emergency situations their instructions will be followed. Similarly, even the presence of something as trivial as tattoos can affect the amount of power wielded in a group. One of the authors of this text had a friend named Del who was a manager in an international book publishing company. Del was a former merchant marine whose forearms were adorned with tattoos. Del would often take off his suit coat and roll up his sleeves when meetings were not going his way, and he often exerted considerably more influence by merely exposing his tattoos to the rest of the group.

     A final situational factor that can affect one’s potential to influence others is the presence or absence of a crisis. Leaders usually can exert more power during a crisis than during periods of relative calm. Perhaps this is because during a crisis leaders are willing to draw on bases of power they normally forgo. For example, a leader who has developed close interpersonal relationships with followers generally uses her referent power to influence them. During crises or emergency situations, however, leaders may be more apt to draw on their legitimate and coercive bases of power to influence subordinates. That was precisely the finding in a study of bank managers’ actions; the bank managers were more apt to use legitimate and coercive power during crises than during noncrisis situations. This same phenomenon is observable in many dramatizations. In the television series Star Trek, the Next Generation, for example, Captain Picard normally uses his referent and expert power to influence subordinates. During emergencies, however, he will often rely on his legitimate and coercive power. Another factor may be that during crises followers are more willing to accept greater direction, control, and structure from leaders, whatever power base may be involved.

The Milgram Studies

HIGHLIGHT 4.2

One intriguing way to understand power, influence, and influence tactics is to read a synopsis of Stanley Milgram’s classic work on obedience and to think about how this work relates to the concepts and theories discussed in this chapter. Milgram’s research explored how far people will go when directed by an authority figure to do something that might injure another person. More specifically, Milgram wanted to know what happens when the dictates of authority and the dictates of one’s conscience seem incompatible.

       The participants were men from the communities surrounding Yale University. They were led to believe they were helping in a study concerning the effect of punishment on learning; the study’s legitimacy was enhanced by the study being conducted on the Yale campus. Two subjects at a time participated in the study—one as a teacher and the other as a learner. The roles apparently were assigned randomly. The teacher’s task was to help the learner memorize a set of word pairs by providing electric shocks whenever the learner (who would be in an adjacent room) made a mistake.

      A stern experimenter described procedures and showed participants the equipment for Administering Punishment. This “shock generator” looked ominous, with rows of switches, lights, and warnings labeled in 15-volt increments all the way to 450 volts. Various points along the array were marked with increasingly dire warnings such as extreme intensity and danger: severe. The switch at the highest level of shock was simply marked XXX . Every time the learner made a mistake, the teacher was ordered by the experimenter to administer the next higher level of electric shock.

     In actuality, there was only one true subject in the experiment—the teacher. The learner was really a confederate of the experimenter. The supposed random assignment of participants to teacher and learner conditions had been rigged in advance. The real purpose of the experiment was to assess how much electric shock the teachers would administer to the learners in the face of the latter’s increasingly adamant protestations to stop. This included numerous realistic cries of agony and complaints of a heart condition—all standardized, predetermined, tape-recorded messages delivered via the intercom from the learner’s room to the teacher’s room. If the subject (that is, the teacher) refused to deliver any further shocks, the experimenter prodded him with comments such as “The experiment requires that you go on” and “You have no other choice; you must go on.”

      Before Milgram conducted his experiment, he asked mental health professionals what proportion of the subjects would administer apparently dangerous levels of shock. The consensus was that only a negligible percentage would do so—perhaps 1 or 2 percent of the population. Milgram’s actual results were dramatically inconsistent with what any experts had predicted. Fully 70 percent of the subjects carried through with their orders, albeit sometimes with great personal anguish, and delivered the maximum shock possible—450 volts!

Thus far we have been looking at how different Sources of Power can affect others, but that’s only one perspective. Another way of looking at the relationship between power and leadership involves focusing on the individual leader’s personality. We will look most closely at the role personality plays in leadership in an upcoming chapter, but it will be nonetheless useful now to briefly examine how all people (including leaders) vary in their personal motivation to have or wield power.

    People vary in their motivation to influence or control others. McClelland 38 called this the need for power, and individuals with a high need for power derive psychological satisfaction from influencing others. They seek positions where they can influence others, and they are often involved concurrently in influencing people in many different organizations or decision-making bodies. In such activities they readily offer ideas, suggestions, and opinions, and also seek information they can use in influencing others. They are often astute at building trusting relationships and assessing power networks, though they can also be quite outspoken and forceful. They value the tangible signs of their authority and status as well as the more intangible indications of others’ deference to them. Two different ways of expressing the need for power have been identified: personalized power and socialized power. Individuals who have a high need for personalized power are relatively selfish, impulsive, uninhibited, and lacking in self-control. These individuals exercise power for their own needs, not for the good of the group or the organization. Socialized power, on the other hand, implies a more emotionally mature expression of the motive. Socialized power is exercised in the service of higher goals to others or organizations and often involves self-sacrifice toward those ends. It often involves an empowering, rather than an autocratic, style of management and leadership.

    Although the need for power has been measured using questionnaires and more traditional personality inventories, McClelland and his associates have used the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) to assess need for power. The TAT is a projective personality test consisting of pictures such as a woman staring out a window or a boy holding a violin. Subjects are asked to make up a story about each picture, and the stories are then interpreted in terms of the strengths of various needs imputed to the characters, one of which is the need for power. Because the pictures are somewhat ambiguous, the sorts of needs projected onto the characters are presumed to reflect needs (perhaps at an unconscious level) of the storyteller. Stories concerned with influencing or controlling others would receive high scores for the need for power.

    The need for power is positively related to various leadership effectiveness criteria. For example, McClelland and Boyatzis 39 found the need for power to be positively related to success for nontechnical managers at AT&T, and Stahl 40 found that the need for power was positively related to managers’ performance ratings and promotion rates. In addition, Fodor 41 reported that small groups of ROTC students were more likely to successfully solve a subarctic survival situation if their leader had a strong need for power. Although these findings appear promising, several cautions should be kept in mind. First, McClelland and Boyatzis also reported that the need for power was unrelated to the success of technical managers at AT&T. Apparently the level of knowledge (that is, expert power) played a more important role in the success of the technical managers versus that of the nontechnical managers. Second, McClelland 43 concluded that although some need for power was necessary for leadership potential, successful leaders also have the ability to inhibit their manifestation of this need. Leaders who are relatively uninhibited in their need for power will act like dictators; such individuals use power impulsively, to manipulate or control others, or to achieve at another’s expense. Leaders with a high need for power but low activity inhibition may be successful in the short term, but their followers, as well as the remainder of the organization, may pay high costs for this success. Some of these costs may include perceptions by fellow members of the organization that they are untrustworthy, uncooperative, overly competitive, and looking out primarily for themselves. Finally, some followers have a high need for power too. This can lead to tension between leader and follower when a follower with a high need for power is directed to do something.

Individuals vary in their motivation to manage, just as in their need for power. Miner described the motivation to manage in terms of six composites:

• Maintaining good relationships with authority figures.

• Wanting to compete for recognition and advancement.

• Being active and assertive.

• Wanting to exercise influence over subordinates.

• Being visibly different from followers.

• Being willing to do routine administrative tasks.

     Like McClelland, Miner also used a projective test to measure a person’s motivation to manage. Miner’s Sentence Completion Scale (MSCS) consists of a series of incomplete sentences dealing with the six components just described (such as “My relationship with my boss . . . ”). Respondents are asked to complete the sentences, which are scored according to established criteria. The overall composite MSCS score (though not component scores) has consistently been found to predict leadership success in hierarchical or bureaucratic organizations. Thus individuals who maintained respect for authority figures, wanted to be recognized, acted assertively, actively influenced subordinates, maintained “psychological distance” between themselves and their followers, and readily took on routine administrative tasks were more apt to be successful in bureaucratic organizations. However, Miner claimed that different qualities were needed in flatter, nonbureaucratic organizations, and his review of the MSCS  supports this view.

     Findings concerning both the need for power and the motivation to manage have several implications for leadership practitioners. First, not all individuals like being leaders. One reason may be that some have a relatively low need for power or motivation to manage. Because these scores are relatively stable and fairly difficult to change, leaders who do not enjoy their role may want to seek positions where they have fewer supervisory responsibilities.

     Second, a high need for power or motivation to manage does not guarantee leadership success. The situation can play a crucial role in determining whether the need for power or the motivation to manage is related to leadership success. For example, McClelland and Boyatzis 47 found the need for power to be related to leadership success for nontechnical managers only, and Miner  found that motivation to manage was related to leadership success only in hierarchical or bureaucratic organizations.

     Third, to be successful in the long term, leaders may require both a high need for socialized power and a high level of activity inhibition. Leaders who impulsively exercise power merely to satisfy their own selfish needs will probably be ineffective in the long term. Finally, it is important to remember that followers, as well as leaders, differ in the need for power, activity inhibition, and motivation to manage. Certain followers may have stronger needs or motives in this area. Leaders may need to behave differently toward these followers than they might toward followers having a low need for power or motivation to manage.

    Two recent studies offer a fitting conclusion to this section about power and the individual’s motives and a transition to our next topic. Magee and Galinsky  not only have presented a comprehensive review of the nature of power in hierarchical settings but also have noted that the acquisition and application of power induce transformation of individual psychological process, with the result being manifested by actions to further increase power! This is not the first time this phenomenon has been observed (recall Lord Acton’s words about power and corruption). That power actually transforms individual psychological processes as an underlying cause of this phenomenon is fascinating.

    But just having power, by either situation or individual transformation, does not guarantee success. Treadway and colleagues 50 have presented research showing that while past work performance is a source of personal reputation and can increase an individual’s power, this increase does not necessarily translate into influence over others. Many fail to achieve this increased influence due to their lack of political skills for influence, and the application of influence is our next topic.

As alluded to throughout this chapter, a strong relationship exists between the relative power of agents and targets and the types of influence tactics used. Because leaders with high amounts of referent power have built close relationships with followers, they may be more able to use a wide variety of influence tactics to modify the attitudes and behaviors of their followers. For example, leaders with referent power could use inspirational appeals, consultations, ingratiation, personal appeals, exchanges, and even coalition tactics to increase the amount of time a particular follower spends doing work-related activities. Note, however, that leaders with high referent power generally do not use legitimizing or pressure tactics to influence followers because, by threatening followers, leaders risk some loss of referent power. Leaders who have only coercive or legitimate power may be able to use only coalition, legitimizing, or pressure tactics to influence followers.

    Other factors also can affect the choice of influence tactics. People typically use hard tactics (that is, legitimizing or pressure tactics) when an influencer has the upper hand, when they anticipate resistance, or when the other person’s behavior violates important norms. People typically use soft tactics (such as ingratiation) when they are at a disadvantage, when they expect resistance, or when they will personally benefit if the attempt is successful. People tend to use rational tactics (the exchange and rational appeals) when parties are relatively equal in power, when resistance is not anticipated, and when the benefits are organizational as well as personal. Studies have shown that influence attempts based on factual, logical analyses are the most frequently reported method by which middle managers exert lateral influence 54 and upward influence. Other important components of successful influence of one’s superiors include thoroughly preparing beforehand, involving others for support (coalition tactics), and persisting through a combination of approaches.  

    Findings about who uses different tactics, and when, provide interesting insights into the influence process. It is clear that one’s influence tactic of choice depends on many factors, including intended outcomes and one’s power relative to the target person. Although it may not be surprising that people select influence tactics as a function of their power relationship with another person, it is striking that this relationship holds true so universally across different social domains—for business executives, for parents and children, and for spouses. There is a strong tendency for people to resort to hard tactics whenever they have an advantage in clout if other tactics fail to get results.  As the bank robber Willie Sutton once said, “You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can get with just a kind word.” This sentiment is apparently familiar to bank managers, too. The latter reported greater satisfaction in handling subordinates’ poor performance when they were relatively more punishing. Highlight 4.4 offers thoughts on how men and women managers sometimes use different influence techniques.

    Although hard tactics can be effective, relying on them can change the way we see others. This was demonstrated in an experiment wherein leaders’ perceptions and evaluations of subordinates were assessed after they exercised different sorts of authority over the subordinates. Several hundred business students acted as managers of small work groups assembling model cars. Some of the students were told to act in an authoritarian manner, exercising complete control over the group’s work; others were told to act as democratic leaders, letting group members participate fully in decisions about the work. As expected, authoritarian leaders used more hard tactics, whereas democratic leaders influenced subordinates more through rational methods. More interesting was the finding that subordinates were evaluated by the two types of leaders in dramatically different ways even though the subordinates of both types did equally good work. Authoritarian leaders judged their subordinates as less motivated, less skilled, and less suited for promotion. Apparently, bosses who use hard tactics to control others’ behavior tend not to attribute any resultant good performance to the subordinates themselves. Ironically, the act of using hard tactics leads to negative attributions about others, which, in turn, tend to corroborate the use of hard tactics in the first place.

     Finally, we should remember that using influence tactics can be thought of as a social skill. Choosing the right tactic may not always be enough to ensure good results; the behavior must be skillfully executed. We are not encouraging deviousness or a manipulative attitude toward others, merely recognizing the obvious fact that clumsy influence attempts often come across as phony and may be counterproductive. See Highlight 4.5 for some interesting ways influence skills are applied in the political arena.

Gender Differences in Managing Upward: How Male and Female Managers Get Their Way

HIGHLIGHT 4.4

Both male and female managers in a Fortune 100 company were interviewed and completed surveys about how they influence upward—that is, how they influence their own bosses. The results generally supported the idea that female managers’ influence attempts showed greater concern for others, whereas male managers’ influence attempts showed greater concern for self. Female managers were more likely to act with the organization’s broad interests in mind, consider how others felt about the influence attempt, involve others in planning, and focus on both the task and interpersonal aspects of the situation. Male managers, on the other hand, were more likely to act out of self-interest, show less consideration for how others might feel about the influence attempt, work alone in developing their strategy, and focus primarily on the task.

    One of the most surprising findings of the study was that, contrary to prediction, female managers were less likely than male managers to compromise or negotiate during their influence attempts. The female managers were actually more likely to persist in trying to persuade their superiors, even to the point of open opposition. At first this may seem inconsistent with the idea that the female managers’ influence style involved greater concern for their relatedness to others. However, it seems consistent with the higher value placed by the women managers on involvement. Perhaps female managers demonstrate more commitment to their issues, and greater self-confidence that they are doing the “right thing,” precisely because they have already interacted more with others in the organization and know they have others’ support.

    While male and female managers emphasized different influence techniques, it is important to note that neither group overall was more effective than the other. Nonetheless, there may be significant implications of the various techniques for a manager’s career advancement. At increasingly higher management levels in an organization, effectiveness may be defined primarily by its fit with the organization’s own norms and values. Managers whose style most closely matches that of their superior may have an advantage in evaluations and promotion decisions. This may be a significant factor for women, given the highly skewed representation of males in the most senior executive ranks.

To Be or Not to Be . . . a Porcupine

HIGHLIGHT 4.5

We have said that there are no simple recipes for leadership. This is evident in the various ways power and influence are exercised in the halls of the U.S. Congress. In The Power Game, author Hedrick Smith offers numerous examples of how Washington, DC, actually works. For example, interpersonal relationships play a key part in one’s effectiveness; but there are many paths to interpersonal power and influence in government, as the following anecdotes point out.

    Barney Frank, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, likens success in the House of Representatives to high school. Nobody in the House can give any other member an order, not even the speaker of the house. Neither can anyone be fired except by his or her own constituencies. That means, therefore, that those in Congress become influential by persuading people and having others respect but not resent them. In that sense it’s like high school. Sometimes, however, it may pay to be unlikable, at least in some situations. Former senator (and later secretary of state) Ed Muskie had a reputation for being a “porcupine”—for being difficult in the conference committees where final versions of legislation were hammered out. A former staff member said Muskie was the best porcupine of them all because nobody wanted to tangle with him. Muskie will “be gross. He’ll smoke a god-awful cigar. He’ll just be difficult, cantankerous.” One reason Muskie was so successful as a legislator was precisely that he could be nearly impossible to deal with. People would rather ignore him and try to avoid fights or confrontations with his notorious temper. Muskie knew how to be a porcupine, and he used that behavior to advantage in authoring critical legislation.