Conflict

A conflict is when a issue arises in a group of two or more people about an issue that they both disagree about and by having different views and not accepting the others opinions or suggestions a conflict arises. An example to define conflict would be that while studying at Uxbridge college I was put into a group of three with two other people they where john and James, what we were asked to do was to present a slideshow presentation on airline business in front of the class. After some personality clashes we came to a conclusion and I was nominated to be leder of the group , by acting as leader of the group I assigned tasks for all members of the group to carry out. The members in our group were each given the task to do 3 slides each to describe the content within the presentation. John was meant to do the first three slides that was the introduction to the presentation and gave some background information on airlines. I did the main slides that went into detail about the airlines and included other important information and the James was to do the last slides with a conclusion. The conflict that arose within the group was that I and john felt that James was not contributing to the group presentation and so we confronted him, James was not willing to do the work and was expecting to be able to receive credit fro the work that I and James had done. The strategy that we used was to tell James that if he did not do his part and contribute to the presentation then we would leave the PowerPoint slides blank and he would have to explain to the lecturer why he had not done the work. In the end James did not contribute to the PowerPoint presentation and the group as a whole failed the task due to the work being incomplete.

French and ravens sources of power

Leadership and power are closely linked. People tend to follow those who are powerful. And because others follow, the person with power leads. Most effective leaders use mainly referent and expert power. (mindtools.com, 2011)

The different French and ravens sources of power that were identified in 1959 are:

Coercive power:  It is the belief that a person is entitled to punish others for not complying. (mindtools.com, 2011).  The problem that can be with this source of power is that it can be prone to abuse. Examples of coercive power is that, people in higher positions in a business threatening employees under their control  with being fired or demoting them to lower positions, giving them task that are undesirable and the managers knowing that an employee is not comfortable with  carrying out the tasks.  Most mangers will abuse this power although they may have to punish employees if they do not carry out the job they were assigned to do, the managers do not have the right to threaten their employees without any reasons. This type of power will cause lots of problems for the business, it could lead to employees not willing to work under the mangers and either leaving or asking to be moved to different departments within the business. An example of coercive power within a business is that a manger has assingemd employees a task to complete, an employ has refused to carry out the task because he does not feel comfortable doing the task. The employee objects to the manger and say that he would like to be assigned to another task because he is not comfortable carrying out the task because he may not have much experience in the certain filed. The manager not accepting to give the employee a different assignment they are more comfortable and feeling a sense of non compliance from the employee says to the employee if they do not carry out the task they will be fired. This would be a case of coercive power, in order for the leader to be a good leader he or she needs to make sure that they do not rely on coercive power alone and also instead of just punishing employees also reward them for jobs done well.

Reward power : This results from one person's ability to compensate another for compliance. . (mindtools.com, 2011).  People that have power are able to give rewards to employees these can range from promotions, desirable assignments training opportunities or a compliment.  All of these are rewards given by people that are in higher positions in power.  Although employees will expect to receive big rewards in return for getting assignments completed to the person in power for example a managers standards, they will expect to receive a reward for this. Although this can increase performance of staff and can benefit the business n a positive way , reward power can also be problematic. The reason behind this is that there is not much control in the business in ways to reward employees as even the CEO has to ask permission of the board of directors before handing out rewards to employees, also if the reward given is not of any perceived value by individuals then the power will weaken.  The reward should be used to motivate employees to work hard on getting assignments done and should not be given to employees very easily. An example of reward power in a business is if an employee completed to a high standard a task they were assigned to, the reward given to him or her by the mangers being impressed with the quality of work be a raise in salary or a promotion to a higher position.

Expert power: This is based on a person's superior skill and knowledge. (mindtools.com, 2011)  when a person in a higher position has advanced knowledge and skills to deal with task in the business,  employees will look up to them and try to learn from them new skills that would allow them to develop the skills as well. When expertise have been demonstrated then people tend to respect and trust their supervisors and mangers more. An expert in a specific subject matter, the ideals of the person in power will have more value and they will be looked up to for leadership in the certain subject area.  It is one of the best ways to improve leadership skills as the leaders can use their confidence and rational thinking and expand them to other subjects and issues. An example of expert power would be facing problems at work with a private issue or maybe unable to complete the tasks,  a member of the team or the manager would offer solutions to the problems that they would be facing, the employees would take the advice and apply it to the job at hand the reason for this is that the manger has more experience in the field of work.

Referent power: This is the result of a person's perceived attractiveness, worthiness, and right to respect from others (mindtools.com, 2011) this is thought of as charisma, charm, admiration, or appeal.  Referent power comes from a person liking and respecting another and identifies with the person in a similar manner. An example of referent manner is an employee with some charm and makes everyone around them feel good for this reason they normally have a lot of influence in decision making.  To have referent power is a big responsibility because work is not necessarily need to be done in order to earn it, for this reason people with this power can abuse it quite easily.  An example of this in business would be, if an employee was very likable in a business and hard working and able to make people happy but lacked honesty and would often lie could rise to power and use the power in ways to hurt and alienate fellow employees for personal gains or advantage in getting a promotion.  If a leader wanted to have a successful leadership position and be respected  it would not be a good strategy for him or her to  rely solely on referent power alone.  When combined with other sources of power, however, it can help you achieve great success (mindtools.com, 2011).

Legitimate power: This comes from the belief that a person has the right to make demands, and expect compliance and obedience from others. Social hierarchies, cultural norms, and organizational structure all provide the basis for legitimate power. (mindtools.com, 2011). Legitimate power is unpredictable and unstable, because if the title of position of a person is lost then legitimate power will disappear, the reason for this is that people where influence by the position the individual had and not by the person that position.  An example of this is that if the CEO of Microsoft was to be fired from his position by the board of directors then he would lose his legitimate power as people and employees were influenced not by who he was and what he did but the power and position he had in the business, suck as making important decisions that could lead to increased profits and a better reputation of the business.  In terms of legitimate power ,  the scope of power is limited to the time that people such as board of directors believe that the CEO has the right to control and if they believe they are making a loss then the CEO would instantly be removed form the position and legitimate power would be lost. Also relying on legitimate power as the only way to influence people is not enough, in order to be a good leader you need more and in some job roles legitimate power will not be needed at all in order to influence people.

What can be seen from the work related stress article is that, businesses should make sure that their staff members are not put under stress by giving them lots of work to do, they businesses should make sure that employees are given sufficient breaks and not required to work long hours.  By looking at the statistics mentioned in the article, what can be seen is that stress is slowly becoming a major risk to business; this will have a large impact on how employees work and the business performance.  If employees are under stress they will not be able to work to the best of their ability and as the article shows will take days of from work. This can lead to the business not being able to provide the same services or manufactures the same amount of products which will result in the business losing profits and could lead to employees leaving due to the large amount of work they are required to do and because of stress cannot handle. Work relates stress does not only affect an employee’s performance at work but also affect their home life and health. Business in order to decrease the stress that their employees are having should carry out surveys to find out what they feel is leading to them having too much stress and try to deal with the problems that employees are facing. Due to the recession many business have had to make their employees redundant and this has lead to employees who have been kept on by the business to take on extra work, this would also lead to stress for employees. The article shows that there are lots of different factors contributing to work related stress and that business are not doing anything to deal with it, what the article outlines is that if business do not make changes then employees will leave the business not being able to deal with stress and this will effect the business in the long run.

Conclusion

In conclusion, in order for person to be a successful leader and be an inspiration for their employees , it is essential that a good leader how at least two of French and ravens powers, the powers that would be best to have are referent power and expert , the reason for this is that both the powers go hand in hand and attributes of these powers allow a person within any type of business to be a good leader and get along with employees without problems, employees will also be more comfortable in a working environment if the leader has expertise in certain fields and is also rewarding and encourages employees when they do a good job. There will always be conflict in organisations especially when people with different personalities are required to work together, what can be done to avoid there being conflicts developing the business should know which employees work well together and have the same way of thinking as this will allow people with the same way of thinking to work together, this can be tricky though as in a group there will always be conflicts between members of a group.  As mentioned when at college working with others was very stressful and by confronting the person who there was conflict with a solution to the problem was found and the group although did not pass was able to work well together. 

References

mindtools.com, (2011) French and ravens source of power [online] Available from: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_56.htm [Accessed 21 December 2011].