Politics and the misuse of power cannot be eliminated from organizations. Consider a worse case scenario:

You are working on your Business Management Certificate in the hope to advance yourself. You realize that with the present economy, you may have to work in a position until you earn your degree. Your present sales representative position for a telecommunications company does puts bread on the table for your family; but is highly competitive and here's the kicker...

Your boss is the ultimate personal power person. He has acquired personal power as regional sales manager and is not afraid to manipulate employees for purely personal gain. His psychological profile would read: very pragmatic with the ends justifying the means, capable of lying to achieve personal goals, and is more likely to persuade than be persuaded. Moreover; he is like the Godfather in that he is more likely to win in win-lose situation. He is known around the water cooler as The Boss from Hell.

Your Boss from Hell calls you into his office and wants you to alter the price of a sales agreement you have recently negotiated with an important customer. The benefit of the altered price is that your boss would now be entitled to an executive bonus for increasing sales in his territory. He claims that the customer would probably not notice the increased price as they do repetitive business with your company. You are resisting and boss says: "Do it dam it!" If not, I will plaster your employment file with enough incident reports and bad appraisals that you will not be able to get another job." What do you do?

Directions

• Create a journal entry entitled " Organizational Politics and the Misuse of Power."
• Consider the organization you work for (or another organization) and describe at least two (2) situations of organizational politics you've observed (or been involved in) in which a supervisor or manager used her/his personal power to influence an individual or group. Refer to Table 11.2-Influence Tactics Used in Organizations to identify situations.
• Describe at least one (1) action for each situation in which you think the individual or group could have taken to counter the undue influence tactics of the supervisor or manager. Refer to Table 11.3-Managing Youre Relationship with Your Boss for possible counteractions.

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to examine a situation in which management exerts personal power upon a subordinate to achieve personal goals.