THE POSITIVE USE OF POSITIONAL POWER
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© 1998 Situation Management Systems, Inc.
INTRODUCTION
Power is the potential you have to get things done or to make them happen. In your
organization, your power—your potential—derives from many sources: expertise,
experience, knowledge, reputation, position, perhaps sometimes your personality.
Some of these power sources are personal, some are positional and many are a mix
of the two. The Positive Power and Influence Program helps you identify how to use
your influence skills to implement many aspects of your personal power.
However, you may also be facing influence situations where positional power issues
are present and important. Handling these well requires some careful consideration of
the issues involved.
Positional power is neither positive nor negative. Its impact depends on how
you use it.
Whether you have positional power, or not, you can use personal influence skills to
neutralize, remove, or set aside positional power issues. However, even skillful
influencers sometimes find themselves in situations requiring extra effort to resolve
positional problems.
These situations include:
• Influencing others who have more positional power than you do. Some people
experience insecurity or blocks when dealing with their supervisors. In influence
situations, these barriers can result in low impact or outright Avoiding. Even when you
overcome your personal limitations, others may limit your effectiveness by “pulling
rank” and using their positional power in negative ways.
• Influencing others who have less positional power than you do. Building
constructive relationships with your direct reports is fundamental to motivating and
developing them. Their productivity and high-quality performance depend on being
fully committed to carrying out their jobs. If you rely too heavily on positional power
your direct reports may misinterpret your influence attempts as arbitrary, seeing use
of position where there is none. If these conditions exist, both sides will experience an
energy loss and an erosion of the working relationship.
• Influencing others with equal positional power. Influencing peers can lead to
boundary conflicts, authority questions, and resistance over territory or turf. People
may get caught up in defending their position instead of focusing on the Influence
Objective. Appeals to higher authority may result, diluting both parties’ power in the
situation.
Positive influence requires that neither person lose total power or perceive
they are losing it. Positive power and influence involves meeting personal
objectives and building or maintaining productive relationships. Both influencer and
target should be as powerful—or more so—at the end of the influence attempt as
they were at the beginning.
Positive influence requires a power balance by definition. The primary cause
of avoiding or resistance is the actual or anticipated loss of power.
• Influencers lose power if they fail to achieve their influence objectives.
• Influence targets lose power if the relationship is not maintained or
strengthened.
• Both parties lose power if they fail to achieve the objective or do not maintain a
positive relationship.
The total power each person has in an influence situation is the sum of their
positional power and personal power.
For positive results to occur, the total power each person has must be balanced,
even when their positional and personal power vary. Balancing total power can be
accomplished by exercising either positional or personal power according to the
situation.
Positive influence requires a power balance.
• When you have low positional power, you can maintain or expand your total
power by exercising your personal power—by exerting personal influence.
• When you have high positional power, you can step away from your positional
power in the situation by exerting personal influence and/or you can enhance the
target's personal power.
• When you and the target have equal positional power, you can maintain or
expand your positional power, work to balance both parties’ personal power, and/or
agree that each party step away from their positions in any specific situation.
As an influencer, how might you maintain or expand positional power, especially when
it has formal limits? How can personal influence skills help you use positional power
more constructively? What role does planning play in creating a power balance?
Want to learn more about how you can develop your Positive Power and
Influence? Watch for the continuation of this series in our Influence Newsletter,
email us today at info@aprendagroup.com for an early copy or read detailed
information on the Positive Power and Influence Program here.
