Power and Ethics

Synonyms

Organizational potency and conscience; Puissance and integrity; Prepollence and fairness

Power is the ability to get things done. Ideally this occurs through the constructive application of creativity and cooperation. The sources or bases of power in organizations, as delineated by French and Raven, can be described as legitimacy, expertise, referent power, coercive power, and reward power. Legitimate or positional power is held by people who “earned” the position and are, therefore, the legitimate heads of an organizations, managers of agencies, or professors. Expertise can make one seem to be indispensable to an organization because “experts” solve problems and, hence, become influential and are often highly promotable. Referent power derives from either the cultivation of interpersonal relationships usually based on charisma within an organization or by the perception of association with the organizations top management. Coercive power rests on the policing ability to fire,...