Professor Kern

Need it by Saturday

Week 7:Comments to four

Power and Influence

Carlissa

Daft defines influence as the effect a person’s actions have on the attitude, values, beliefs or actions of others (p.369).

There is an expression that says first impressions last a lifetime.  When you meet someone for the very first time your actions, behavior, body language, and posture will automatically “influence” them. Even the way you speak and your tone of voice can influence a person’s perception of you. This will give them a negative or positive impression of you.

In the video Amy Cuddy talked about power and power poses that can help people on an individual basis. She mentioned how these power poses can help one feel empowered and if you feel empowered this can help you get that job or promotion. This will help the way you act and the way you perceive things. Other traits that go along with power are confidence, aggressiveness, courage, charisma, knowledge, and dominance. 

Sometimes, well a lot of times people are intimidated by power.

I thought it was interesting when she mentioned how the feeling of power can affect our hormones, high testosterone and low cortisol.

One thing that stood out for me in this video is “making yourself small”. I am always conscience of my posture but I never really thought about the everyday little things that I may do that may make myself seem small so I have to keep an eye out. I can’t say I have a sparkling personality and perform gestures that may make me seem small (

I enjoyed Amy’s presentation. Wonder Woman took me way back. Come to think of it most of the superheroes pose that way.

Chelsey

Power can influence others significantly whether it is through body language, as discussed in the video or verbal communication. Power determines aspects within an organization like who gets promoted and who does not get promoted. Power can influence people to do what they want, when they want establishing a sort of dependency. If someone looks at a leader within an organization as having power, people within the organization are more likely to develop a dependency on this person whether it be for information, resources, cooperation and more. As a leader to establish a sense of power within an organization could also help to encourage employees to perform work at the best of their ability. If you know the leader of an organization can supply you with what you need to get the job done, as am employee, you should work to use that to your advantage. In the video, Cuddy explains the significance of body language and how you present your body language as a leader. If you cross your arms, hunch your shoulders, or have close-closed contact with your body, that will affect how employees look at you and the power that you have over them. As a leader, if you are always crossing your arms  and not presenting your body language in an assertive manner with closed postures, employees may not take you as serious and cause them to not take the job as serious, affecting motivation. Also, if you are not putting a smile on, this could influence how your employees feel. Cuddy says that a study has shown that smiling makes other people happy. 

To have power within an organization, also give the leader control over resources such as job positions, rewards, support or materials. Knowing that leaders have this power, this is another reason that should motivate and encourage the employee to perform the job at an acceptable standard. This should motivate employees because if they do not, they could sacrifice getting a promotion in a new position or receiving a pay raise or bonus. These resources are ones that are considered important to the individual such as pay or a job promotion. 

The power to release certain information also has an effect on how the power of an individual can influence others. Choosing to selectively share private information, needed by leaders with employees, gives them the employees a sense of power as well. Leaders usually have more access to information that lower employees do not and by choosing to share this information can shape the actions and attitudes of employees. 

Leadership Diversity

Nicola

Diversity means a mix of people from different racial, religious culture, social, economic background gay and straight too. Its said to be good, it reflects the reality of the population of the country . I don’t see any advantage, people tend to congregate with others like them thats just the way it is. Diversity is what makes up the world we live in, Hot & cold, black & white, pleasure & pain, rich & poor, tall & short. The blance requires other options in order to provide a valid interpretation. Diversity isn’t just limited to Racial issues in fact without diversity racism couldn’t exist. Our individual opinions on the importance of diversity are irrelevant to its existance.  If you are a business man doing business in another country it is very important in order to be successful. you have to understand their business practices as well as their culture at large. Like the chinese importance of saving face. You should also understand their religious practies to a certain degree.  Bowing in Japan as a sign of respect as opposed to hand shaking. Don’t point with your finger at people in the Philippines. All these type of customs and more are very important both here and in the country you are visiting even if only as a tourist. We have enough ugly American images to overcome.  The book speak of workforce diversity:

Workforce diversity increases creativity within a company because heterogeneous groups are cross-fertilizing one another within the organization.  Employees from different backgrounds bring in a variety of solutions on how to achieve a common goal. As more diverse ideas are suggested, the chances of finding a workable answer are improved. In atmospheres when brainstorming is necessary, more ideas are formed because team members are culturally diverse. For example, employees from China working in American companies may approach a problem totally differently than do American workers. Some companies have successfully created innovative processes by taking ideas from several employees.

The “diversity” that is so highly lauded is often achieved at the price of excellence. People are not accepted or rejected based on merit, but on how they add to the diversity of the group. One possible benefit is that the different view points of a diverse group of people help generate ideas and solve problems. Culturally, the push for diversity is actually having a narrowing effect. Many cultural traditions are being lost, and society is homogenizing into a mix of all cultures.     The importance of diversity lies in acceptance of the everybody is different from everybody else and as unique individuals we are all of equal importance with equal right to peacefully exist. Failure to accept diversity leads to a mistaken belief in one person’s superiority over another based on gender,ethnicty, sexuality, income, religion, etc. This tensions and can lead to horrors such as ethnic-cleansing and other oppressive actions. The more diverse gene-pool a species has, the greater chance it has of survival in case of disease or other potentially fatal situations. 

 

Elika

Diversity is the differences in people that can include gender, ethnicity, culture, education, skills, age pay levels, or personality.  Diversity is important and valuable to an organization because it can improve the competitive advantage by combining different skills together.   Diversity allows different people with different backgrounds work together as a team, having a commitment to be successful.  For example, a company can build a diverse customer base by having a diverse group of people working for them.   “Culture plays an important role in determining goods, entertainment, social services, and household products that people use, so organizations are recruiting minority employees  to understand how diverse people live” (Daft p.334)