Formal Power verses Personal Power

A. Formal Power: It is based on the position of an individual in an organization. Formal power is derived from either one’s ability to coerce or reward others or is derived from the formal authority vested in the individual due to his strategic position in the organizational hierarchy. Formal power may be categorized into four types which are as follows:

1.Coercive Power: The coercive power base is being dependent on fear. In an organization one can exercise power over another if they have the power to dismiss, suspend, demote another assuming that the job is valuable to the person like Mr. Parhi often uses it in our case.

2.Reward Power: The opposite of coercive power is reward power. Reward power is the extent to which a manager can use extrinsic and intrinsic rewards to control other people. Examples of such rewards include money, promotions, compliments, or enriched jobs like Mr Shah often uses it in our case.

3.Legitimate Power: The third base of position power is legitimate power, or formal authority .It stems from the extent to which a manager can use subordinates’ internalized values or beliefs that the boss has a right of command to control their behavior.

4.Information Power: This type of power is derived from access to and control over information. When people have needed information, others become dependant on them.For example, managers have access to data that subordinates do not have. Normally thehigher the level, the more information would be accessed by managers.


B. Personal Power: Personal power resides in the individual and is independent of that individual’s position. There are following three bases of personal power:

1.Expert power: Expert power is the ability to control another person’s behavior by virtue of possessing knowledge, experience, or judgment that the other person lacks. A subordinate obeys a supervisor possessing expert power because the boss ordinarily knows more about what is to be done or how it is to be done than does the subordinate.

2.Rational persuasion: Rational persuasion is the ability to control another’s behavior, since, through the individual’s efforts, the person accepts the desirability of an offered goal and a viable way of achieving it. Rational persuasion involves both explaining the desirability of expected outcomes and showing how specific actions will achieve these outcomes.

3.Reference Power: Referent power is the ability to control another’s behavior because the person wants to identify with the power source. In this case, a subordinate obeys the boss because he or she wants to behave, perceive, or believe as the boss does.

What is Environmental stressor and types

Environmental stressor: Environmental stressor means any force or event in the human or natural environment that may cause a person to experience stress. Some examples of environmental stressors include: noise, air pollution, crowding, traffic congestion, terrorism, natural disasters and extremes of temperature. Different environmental stressors on people can impact people's behaviour, mood, cognitive function, physical health and/or psychological well-being.

• Noise: Noise is an unwanted sound. Chatter in the meetings, sounds from the hallway, scraping sounds from chairs and tables, sounds from adjacent rooms, ventilation, sounds and traffic noise.
• Crowding: Stress associated with crowding is not due just to density of people or numbers of people in a space. Whether an environment seems crowded and elicits a stress response dependson the social setting, the physical setting, the goals of each individual in the space and whether thegoals conflict, perceived threats to personal control, level of intimacy of people occupying aspace, personal characteristics of each individual in the space and the coping assets of eachindividual in the space.
• Temperature: Extremes changes of temperature either too hot or too cold put physical demands on the body. Extremes of temperature can impact performance level. Temperature increases aggression increases.
• Evidence of effectiveness: Studies have found that there is a correlation between environmental stressors and academic performance. These studies have also showed a correlation between learning and environmental stressors.
• Critics and their rationale: Overemphasis on achievement as an outcome which ignores the impact the environment has on behavior and the effects of individual differences.

Finding Best Way of Doing Each Job

We see this trend to continue in what is called as the classical era which covers the period between 1900 to mid 1930s. the first general theories of management began to evolve and the main contributors during this era was Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, Max Weber, Mary parker Follet and Chester Barnard.

Frederick Taylor’s main emphasis was on finding one best way of doing each job. He stressed on selecting the right people for the job, train them to do it precisely in one best way. He favored wage plans to motivate the workers. His scientific principles of management stressed the following principles:

1. Shift all responsibility for the organization of work from the worker to the manager; managers should do all the thinking relating to the planning and design of work, leaving the workers with the task of implementation. 

2. Use scientific methods to determine the most efficient way of doing work; assign the worker’s task accordingly, specifying the precise way in which the work is to be done. 

3. Select the best person to perform the job thus designed. 

4. Train the worker to do the work efficiently. 

5. Monitor worker performances to ensure that appropriate work procedures are followed and that appropriate results are achieved. 

Taylor was one of the first to attempt to systematically analyze human behavior at work. He insisted the use of time-and-motion study as a means of standardizing work activities. His scientific approach called for detailed observation and measurement of even the most routine work, to find the optimum mode of performance.

The results were dramatic, with productivity increasing significantly. With passing time, new organizational functions like personnel and quality control were created. Of course, in breaking down each task to its smallest unit to find what Taylor called „„the one best way‟‟ to do each job, the effect was to remove human variability. Hence he lay the ground for the mass production techniques that dominated management thinking in the first half of the twentieth century.

Henri Fayol, a mining engineer and manager by profession, defined the nature and working patterns of the twentieth-century organization in his book, General and Industrial Management, published in 1916. In it, he laid down what he called 14 principles of management. This theory is also called the Administrative Theory. The principles of the theory are:

1. Division of work: tasks should be divided up with employees specializing in a limited set of tasks so that expertise is developed and productivity increased. 

2. Authority and responsibility: authority is the right to give orders and entails enforcing them with rewards and penalties; authority should be matched with corresponding responsibility. 


3. Discipline: this is essential for the smooth running of business and is dependent on good leadership, clear and fair arguments, and the judicious application of penalties. 

4. Unity of command: for any action whatsoever, an employee should receive orders from one superior only; otherwise authority, discipline, order, and stability are threatened. 

5. Unity of direction: a group of activities concerned with a single objective should be co-coordinated by a single plan under one head. 

6. Subordination of individual interest to general interest: individual or group goals must not be allowed to override those of the business. 

7. Remuneration of personnel: this may be achieved by various methods but it should be fair, encourage effort, and not lead to over payment. 


8. Centralization: the extent to which orders should be issued only from the top of the organization is a problem which should take into account its characteristics, such as size and the capabilities of the personnel. 

9. Scalar chain (line of authority): communications should normally flow up and down the line of authority running from the top to the bottom of the organization, but sideways communication between those of equivalent rank in different departments can be desirable so long as superiors are kept informed. 


10. Order: both materials and personnel must always be in their proper place; people must be suited to their posts so there must be careful organization of work and selection of personnel. 


11. Equity: personnel must be treated with kindness and justice. 

12. Stability of tenure of personnel: rapid turnover of personnel should be avoided because of the time required for the development of expertise. 

13. Initiative: all employees should be encouraged to exercise initiative within limits imposed by the requirements of authority and discipline. 

14. Esprit de corps: efforts must be made to promote harmony within the organization and prevent dissension and divisiveness. 

The management functions, that Fayol stated, consisted of planning, organizing, commanding, co-coordinating and controlling. Many practicing managers, even today,
list these functions as the core of their activities. Fayol was also one of the first people to characterize a commercial organization‟s activities into its basic components.