How managers can use their power for good

Matt Somers

Matt Somers Coaching Skills Training Ltd

Founder & Managing Consultant

How managers can use their power for good

Of the different types of power found in an organisation, personal power is the most closely aligned to effective coaching cultures.

By Matt Somers

In this series we’re using Culture Partners’ model, the Results Pyramid, to examine workplace culture generally and coaching cultures in particular.

In this article, we’ll consider power structures.

Power distribution can be revealing

The way that power is derived and distributed in organisations is a very powerful indicator of its culture.

The sources of power are many and various, official and unofficial, formal or informal and can be used for fair as well as foul means. Let’s consider the more obvious categories.

‘Knowledge is power’ so the saying goes and now more than ever in this information age this is indeed so.

Do people guard their specialist knowledge or share it freely and willingly?

The written word is a very strong source of power and can be used to inspire or belittle.

Sources of power are many and various, official and unofficial, formal or informal and can be used for fair as well as foul means

Abandon the ‘carrot and stick’ tool

Organisations have long recognised the power of reward and managers who have the discretionary power to reward performance or behaviour will often claim that the ‘carrot and stick’ is an effective tool for motivation.

It’s a blunt tool at best and may disguise the fact that what appears to be a willing commitment is actually just reluctant compliance.

The use of physical power is sadly not just restricted to the school playground and the increasing instances of bullying at work support this view.

Of course, power is not just found in the leadership ranks and employees too can exert the power of inertia or disruption to thwart many a change programme.

However, they probably need to be mobilised in number to have any noticeable effect and this is more difficult given the modern trend for dispersed workforces.

Exerting expert power won’t always go down well

There is also position power, expert power and personal power and these are more directly linked to questions of coaching culture.

A manager who leads by exerting expert power may well generate respect in an environment that values technical ability but will experience problems when developing capability and independence in their team.

Expert power requires expertise and with knowledge bases being constantly and speedily eroded by technological and other changes, there exists a massive source of pressure to keep up to date.

A manager who leads by exerting expert power may well generate respect in an environment that values technical ability but will experience problems when developing capability and independence in their team

Relying on a position of power is likely ineffective

A team whose cultural expectation is for its leader to be the expert will become demoralised and uncertain where this is not the case.

Similarly, many managers, often newly promoted ones, rely too heavily on their position of power, but waving a business card and job description in people’s faces is unlikely to produce sustainable high performance and will probably produce the exact opposite.

These are the power sources of the uncertain and the insecure.

What does personal power mean?

Personal power comes from a combination of having a clear set of beliefs and values and behaving in accordance with them.

Where the people whom we lead and manage can share and identify with those values they become willing followers and advocates.

In practical terms this means that coaching should be divorced from the hierarchy and coaches selected on their ability to coach rather than their seniority.

It means that coaching should have a developmental as well as a remedial focus and be seen to be utilised by even the strongest performers.

Coaching should be divorced from the hierarchy and coaches selected on their ability to coach rather than their seniority

Utilising personal power for effective coaching

Senior leadership involvement is vital, but this need not be as deliverers of coaching support themselves.

Indeed, those leaders who have actually received and benefited from coaching can be seen as the most potent advocates of a coaching approach.

The strongest use of personal power within a coaching culture that I can see is where a leader is prepared to take a coaching approach with their team irrespective of how they are managed by their own boss.