Chapter 6 introduced us to social administration I and how a manager “influences” day-to-day activities of others in an organization. It also discussed the tenets of power and control.
1) Discuss the difference between influence, control, and power as possessed and used by a manager/leader?
2) How do managers acquire and legitimize power? Explain.
3) What is the difference between rule and power? Base your answer on social administration I class materials
4) Give an example of a leader/manager who has used his/her power productively and respectively and compare or contrast his/her leadership and use of power to another leader/manager whose power has been used abusively. Note: This may require you to do a brief research on leadership and use of power/power and leadership/good use and bad use of leadership power, etc. You must cite your research sources per APA.
Weinbach, R.W. (2015). The social worker as manager: A practical guide to success. (7th ed). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Austin, Michael, Brody, Ralph; and Packard, Thomas. (2008). Managing the challenges in human service organizations: A casebook. Sage Publications.
“Control is all about my needs, my ego, and my desire to feel like the center of my environment. I wish to impose my will on everyone around me, and expect them to fall in line with how I believe things should be… we should instead be striving for influence.” – Die Empty
I’ll admit that as a parent, one of my biggest challenges is letting my children make mistakes. Instead, I want to swoop in and help them do everything right the first time. Sometimes this is for my own convenience. (Honestly, I don’t want to have to wait for them to try something five times.) Of course, I know this is not good. In order to grow, children have to make a lot of mistakes, and learn their limits. They have to become comfortable with uncertainty, and understand that there is sometimes pain on the other side of effort.
In different ways, I believe that the same principle applies in organizations. I regularly hear stories of managers grasping tightly to the reins of their team, and closely controlling every aspect of its behavior. They have to approve every decision, manage every client interaction, and oversee every meeting. In the end, these control-freak managers are actually doing much more harm to the team than good.
I believe that in any area of life in which the goal is to multiply your effort over time, you should be attempting to achieve influence, not control.
Influence is leading by vision, but control is leading by sight.
When your goal is to grow your influence over time, you are working toward a long-arc goal, and you’re willing to accept some short-term failure in order to achieve success in the end. When you lead by control, any shortcoming is intolerable, which causes people on your team to adopt a “wait until you tell me what to do” mindset.
