Power and Influence

Third, because of this, managing the relationship with the boss is a necessary and legitimate part of a job in a modern organization, especially in a difficult leadership job.

He took information supplied to him at face value; he made assumptions in areas where he had no information; and—most damaging—he never actively tried to clarify what his boss’s objectives were.

we do not need a lot of autocratic “experts,” but rather people who think of their jobs as providing leadership in some technical area, even though the people they have to lead do not report to them.

if children hear nothing about their parents’ jobs, or if they are given only simplistic answers to their inquiries about “what mommy and daddy do at work,” they are going to be programmed with naive beliefs.

Corporations that are leaders in their industries and those that help start new industries tend to be full of diversity, interdependence, and conflict, often by explicit design. The people running these firms sometimes purposely create seemingly messy organizational structures, full of complex interdependent relationships.

Altering predispositions toward authority, especially at the extremes, is almost impossible without intensive psychotherapy (psychoanalytic theory and research suggest that such predispositions are deeply rooted in a person’s personality and upbringing).

career path, it requires that one move, over time, toward positions where one can help manage some strategic contingency for the organization. All professional, managerial, and technical people face situations each and every day where they can increase or decrease some of their power. Developing a power base in one’s early career requires that one

hopes of thus gaining an enhanced track record, a promotion to a more powerful position, increased skills, and perhaps stronger relationships with more powerful mentors.

Resolving conflicts in a productive way that pulls people together, instead of driving them farther apart, and which produces creative decisions, instead of destructive power struggles, is a high-level leadership skill.