Building Your Power Base Show In a Nutshell In This Issue
Meg Whitman Can Buy-and-Sell Warren Buffet--and She Did! Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay, tops Fortune magazine's 2004 list of the most powerful women. She can buy-and-sell Warren Buffet and indeed she did! More specifically, eBay hosted an auction of a lunch date with Warren Buffet (it sold for $202,000). It's probably more accurate to say that Whitman's business brought together the potential buyers and the seller of some of Warren Buffet's time, but saying she bought-and-sold him is obviously more fun! (By the way, eBay permits selling lunch dates, but now bans sales of one's virginity.) In the interview for the Fortune article, Whitman shunned the mantle of "most powerful." My theory is that since most of us have experiences with people who either (a) used distasteful means to acquire power, or (b) exercised power inappropriately, we shrewdly avoid creating the appearance of liking power or even having a lot of power. We don't want to be seen as "power hungry" or dictatorial. Nevertheless, Meg Whitman can't do her job without power. Without sufficient power she would be unable to influence others to do what eBay needs to have done in order to succeed. There are obviously a lot of self-serving reasons for managers to build their power bases, and I would never suggest that building a power base should be a manager's first priority. But, when acquired honestly and used ethically, power in organizations isn't inherently evil. In fact, it's quite necessary for managers. Power in organizations is simply the ability to influence others. Leadership requires power. Indeed, leadership can be defined as influencing others to work toward a common goal. Without power, managers are unable to lead. Whitman "enables" her followers to perform at a high level: "Enable, not direct. Use carrots, sticks." Of course, in order for that approach to work, the manager has to have control over the proverbial carrots. The ability to reward others for performing in a manner consistent with your expectations is a base of power.1 Bases of Social Power In Summary ... Footnote 1. Sellers, P. (2004). eBay's Secret. Fortune, Vol. 150, Issue 8 (Oct. 18): 160-178. (Whitman's quote is from p. 172.) Additional Source back to the top About the Photo AFP/File/Laurent Fievet, e-mailed to me October 25, 2004 from Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com). About the Newsletter and Subscriptions back to the top E-mail Your
Comments A Good, Clean Joke News Story: "Top doc backs picking your nose and eating it " What the bases of personal power are?There are two main bases of personal power, which include referent power and expert power.
Which of the following is the bases of power?In this study of power, Raven identified five bases of power as coercive, reward, legitimate, referent, and expert.
Which of the following is the power that is based on the ability to reward?Reward power - The ability to reward
Reward power is based on the belief that a leader controls important resources and rewards that the follower wants. Reward power not only depends on a leader's actual control over rewards, but also on the follower's perceived value of those rewards.
Which of the following bases of powers is based on position power?The three main bases of positional power include legitimate power, reward power and coercive power. Legitimate power stems from the manager's position in the organization and the authority that lies in that position.
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