Leader Power and Subordinate Engagement: A View from Below

By Douglas R. Bunker

What would happen in organizations if leaders used their power to encourage the full participation of subordinates?

Every day we read about leaders who abuse their power in ways that discourage the full engagement of subordinates.

Douglas R. Bunker, an organizational psychologist, proposes ways managers can create positive relationships with their subordinates that promote exceptional performance. Learn how to:

understand why subordinates accept or reject messages from managers;
examine the underlying ethical and moral perspectives on power; and
think differently about your own use of power

He also explains how to address the three fundamental needs of employees: agency, growth, and justice. When leaders and their subordinates work toward fulfilling these needs, everyones success will be enhanced.

Filled with case studies and research, this guide will help you transform your company culture, bolster communication, and reap rewards from Leader Power and Subordinate Engagement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jul 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781480860629

Douglas R. Bunker

Douglas R. Bunker is an organizational psychologist who has combined academic appointments at Harvard Business School and the University at Buffalo with an active consulting practice in organizational development to a variety of business, governmental, and health care organizations in the United States and abroad.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 Douglas R. Bunker.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6060-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6061-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6062-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018905830

Archway Publishing rev. date: 7/03/2018

To my four adult children—Douglas, Linda, Sharon, and Hugh—in appreciation for who they have become and with the hope that they may find these ideas useful in understanding relationships in their own families and in the many other settings in which they are responsible leaders and followers.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1     Leader Behavior and Subordinate Needs: An Introduction

Abuse, Neglect, and Deficient Empathy

Organizational Structures and Processes

What Do People Need from Those to Whom They Report?

Feelings and Deliberate Responses

Needs and Values

Benign Authority

Varieties of Responses to Power Inequality

The Need for a Common Set of Values Surrounding the Use of Power

Where Is This Going?

Part 1:   Alternative Approaches to Understanding the Distribution and Exercise of Power in Organizational Hierarchies

Chapter 2     Ways of Thinking about Power in Organizations

Contrasting Approaches

Power Concepts in Organizational Studies

Power Differences among Horizontal Units

Power from a Social Psychological Perspective

The Link of Power with Charisma

Other Perspectives on Power in Organizations

Chapter 3     A View from Below: Subordinate Reactions to Leaders’ Ways of Using Power

Perceived Fairness and the Effectiveness of Managerial Controls

Other Factors Affecting Responses to Managerial Power

Unequal Formal Power as a Source of Intrapersonal Tension

Uses of Power Reflecting No Concern for Subordinate Needs

Uses of Power that Take Subordinates’ Needs and Values into Account

The Relationship of Power and Love or Positive Regard

Part 2:   Responding to Subordinate Needs to Promote Organizational Engagement

Chapter 4     Fostering the Agency of Subordinates

Choosing a Premise

Mechanistic and Organic Organizational Models

Concepts of Agency in Western Thought

Using Power to Preserve or Enhance Others’ Agency

The Assumption of Parity

Examples of Arrangements to Assure the Broad Distribution of Power

Agency as a Personal Characteristic

Self-Efficacy and Agency

Contributions from Self-Determination Theory

Organizational Impacts of Engaged Agency

Chapter 5     Promoting the Development of Individual Employees and the Organization’s Collective Human Resources

What Responsibility Do Leaders Have for the Development of Their Subordinates?

Contrasting Orientations to Employee Development

Aspirations and Wider Effects

Enhancing Capabilities

The Impact of Power Games on Development Efforts

Reference Points for Ideals Concerning Development

Motivational Arousal: Playing for Keeps Is a Turn-On

Self-Direction Is Essential

Amartya Sen’s Concept of Development through Participation

Exploitative Organizations and Societal Demands

Chapter 6     Responding to Subordinates’ Needs for Justice

The Quest for Justice

Dimensions of Justice

Management Practices Associated with Valuing or Neglecting Justice

Part 3:   Influence Processes and Subordinate Engagement

Chapter 7     The Relationship between Subordinates’ Needs and Values, Influence Processes, and Organizational Engagement

Kelman’s Three Processes of Social Influence

Differences between the Three Models of Influence Processes

Relationships among the Three Processes

A Parallel Model of Influence Processes

The Link between Understanding Influence Processes and Alternative Approaches to Using Managerial Power

Guidelines for Power Holders Derived from the Kelman Framework

Part 4:   Factors Affecting Appropriate Uses of Power

Chapter 8     Individual Differences among Leaders that Deter or Enable Using Power in Ways that Respond to Subordinate Needs

Psychopathic Personality and Other Deterrents to Concern for Subordinate Interests

Orientations and Abilities that Facilitate Attending to Subordinate Concerns

Prospects for Change

Chapter 9     How Organizational Structure and Culture Affect Power Dynamics

The Limits of Bureaucratic Hierarchies

W. L. Gore and Associates Broke the Traditional Model

Other Models Involving Members in Governance

The Circular Organization: A Generalizable Model that Enables Representation of Member Interests

The Link between Organizational Structures and Uses of Differential Power

Structural Conditions that Facilitate Managerial Practices Consistent with Subordinate Needs and Values

Part 5:   Expected Outcomes of Managerial Concern for Subordinate Needs and Values

Chapter 10   Expected Outcomes Linked with the Exercise of Power in Ways that Reflect Concern for Subordinates’ Needs

Proposition 1: Subordinates with opportunities to exercise their agency in self-control over their work activities will have better health outcomes.

Proposition 2: Management responses to subordinates’ key needs and values will have a positive effect upon their job performance, organizational engagement, and organizational citizenship behavior.

Proposition 3: Wide distributions of power leading to greater aggregate power in the organization result in improved organizational performance and subordinate satisfaction.

Connecting These Empirical Findings to Management Patterns of Exercising Power

Chapter 11   How Management’s Uses of Power Based on Recognition of Subordinate Needs Can Improve the Management of Psychological Contracts between Individuals and Organizations

Improving Vertical Relationships by Honoring Commitments to Subordinates

Horizontal Relationships

Power Inequality and Psychological Contracts

Chapter 12   Conclusions and Implications for Change in the Ways Leaders Use the Power of Their Positions

Recognizing Subordinates’ Needs and Values

Relationship among the Three Key Needs and Their Associated Values

Necessary and Legitimate Uses of Managerial Power

Some Themes and Takeaways Emerging from this Analysis of Subordinate Reactions to Managerial Power in Organizations

Complications Arising from Being at Once a Manager and a Subordinate

Obligations of the Powerful

Impacts of This Framework on Organizational Performance

Implementing New Kinds of Relationships among Those with Unequal Power

The Extension of This Model to Communities and Other Social Systems

How Does This Way of Seeing Human Needs Affect Future Possibilities

Endnotes

Bibliography

Preface

This book examines the effects of management power and how it is used on the quality of relationships between managers and their subordinates in formal organizations. Some vertical relationships are not problematic because they provide reciprocal respect, two-way communication, and close collaboration with those who are above and below one another in rank. Other superior/subordinate links can involve large differences in status, small prospects for upward mobility, and firm top-down control. Large gulfs between layers of organizations in their relative power, status, and compensation can create barriers to the full engagement of subordinates and to cooperation between levels. Organizations are best integrated by unbroken chains of cooperative relationships between levels ranging from the executive suite to the shop floor.

Members of organizations receive the formal delegation of power and responsibility associated with their specific positions and ranks in the system. Added to this over time is whatever informal influence they have acquired by building a reputation for competence, fairness, and willingness to help others. Subtractions from effective power can also occur by a reputation for harsh domination, poor listening, and punitive treatment. A manager’s influence upward also depends upon the performance of his or her subordinates. Given this complexity, formal hierarchical power is always important but rarely absolute.

Since I launched this project, fresh reports of managerial abuses of power have crossed my desk every week in letters, e-mails, and newspaper clippings. They describe observations of leader behaviors in law firms, architectural offices, medical centers, and government agencies as well as in business enterprises. I don’t know the details well enough in every case to evaluate its roots, but I am struck by the widespread tension and disruption that arise around power inequalities in work settings. I also am impressed both by these reports and by my personal observations over years of consulting practice that superior power is often exploited to preserve one’s status and command prerogatives to the detriment of subordinates and the organization.

Though bonding with coworkers may offer some rewards to subordinates, a satisfying engagement with the organization is often available only through anticipated advancement, recognition of one’s contribution to the organization’s success, opportunities for significant participation in decision making, or a relationship of mutual understanding and support with one’s immediate supervisor. These are not always available. The management culture of many work organizations is still influenced by Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power, a successor to Machiavelli’s prescriptions. This book is offered as a democratic antidote to Greene’s divisive proposals.

Organizations and individual leaders differ in the balance between nurturance and control in the orientation of higher-ranking actors toward those reporting to them. Some managers are essentially autocratic. Some favor participatory and democratic methods, and many waver between these poles as pressures from above and cultural signals push one way or another. Managers may use their power to further only their own interests and their superiors’ demands, largely ignoring the interests and expectations of their subordinates, or they may be conscientious stewards of both their subordinates’ interests and of meeting organizational goals.

Unequal power between levels and positions is both inevitable and functional for the organization, but when the gaps between levels are so large that they discourage subordinate engagement and inclusion, their involvement depends upon how well individual managers reach out to increase mutual influence and build closer relationships. This book is intended to identify specific levers for changing these vertical relationships toward more active subordinate engagement and cooperation.

The Approach

This is a theoretical synthesis that draws upon both empirical studies in social psychology, organizational studies, and a selection of relevant work in moral and political philosophy. It introduces an innovative framework for making sense of the ways managers use their power to invite or deter subordinates buying into their organizational roles. The approach is more deductive than inductive, but its grounding in the convergence of findings from a variety of integrated research and theory building programs provides a firm foundation for the resulting framework. Though further research is called for to refine and validate the model, it can be usefully applied to guide the improvement of vertical relationships in its present form. In fact, field studies that monitor and measure the outcomes of the applications of these concepts in the workplace are likely to be a major source of further knowledge about these issues.

The Intended Audience

Since this book offers a fresh approach to understanding and designing better inter-level links, it is intended as a practical guide for managers, consultants, and concerned subordinates who seek to improve vertical relationships and the engagement of all members in work organizations. It may also be useful as supplementary reading for graduate and upper-division courses in power and influence.

In a time when there is widespread concern about social and economic inequality, these ideas can also be of interest to general readers who seek to understand unequal power and its links with other manifestations of economic and social inequality. Concerns for fair treatment in the workplace can be generalized and become concerns about political and economic equity in local communities and in the nation.

My purpose is to prompt both personal introspection and conversation across levels about the relationship between different ways managers use their power and the fulfillment of fundamental human needs among those who report to them. If these ideas about subordinate needs and values resonate with both leaders and those reporting to them, they can collaborate to invent new patterns of working together that will improve both the engagement of subordinates and vertical coordination among all layers of organizations.

Acknowledgments

This project has spanned so long a gestation that many people have been casually involved in its development. I benefited from too many helpful and stimulating conversations, reviews, and reactions to acknowledge them all, but some had more continuity and intensity than others. Input from Newton Garver, Murray Levine, Kim Clark, Morton Deutsch, Allen Bergin, Fritz Steele, John Thomas, Patricia Jurgens, Barbara Bunker, and Richard Bushman was particularly helpful. Their suggestions at key decision points gave new direction and renewed impetus to my efforts. Barbara’s support was both substantive and sustaining as she responded to drafts and saw me through recurrent health problems. I am also grateful to Sarah Smith for leading me through the process in the Archway Publishing world and to my editor, whose suggestions improved the clarity of the text in ways that made the ideas more accessible. Of course, I alone am responsible for any errors or shortfalls in the product. My own learning from this process is a personal benefit I hope to share with my readers. My greatest debt may be to those who seek to apply these ideas to improve vertical relationships, leading to both more satisfying engagement of all members in the organization’s work and the integration of efforts across all levels. I will also be indebted to those who pursue the validation and further development of this framework through research or application.

Chapter 1

Leader Behavior and Subordinate Needs: An Introduction

Abuse, Neglect, and Deficient Empathy

Abuse

I recently came upon a midsize public corporation in which the president and CEO was so abrasive and intimidating to his executive team that the chief financial officer, who was respected by both the CEO and other members of the executive group, involuntarily but out of necessity became a buffer between the CEO and the other executives. Team members adapted by working through the CFO rather than face an irascible chief executive directly. While this arrangement was not viable over the long term, it enabled the team to coordinate their activities until the situation was resolved.

The misuse of power can also be observed away from the executive suite. Production employees sometimes have their initiative and discretion trumped by middle managers who have authority to make decisions about production methods, but they may not have an intimate awareness of the production technology or staff skills. I observed a department manager ordering a senior lead pressman in a large magazine printing plant to do a press run in a certain way on his huge multicolor press at the beginning of the night shift. The lead pressman objected on technical grounds, saying that following those instructions would not work, but the manager insisted on doing it his way as he went out the door. The lead pressman and his crew dutifully followed the manager’s instructions with the result that the entire production run for that shift was scrapped.

A new plant manager from the States was assigned to succeed an experienced expatriate who had a sudden fatal heart attack while running a foreign veneer plant owned by a company headquartered in the United States. He inherited a strong cadre of local department heads, supervisors, and administrative staff that were well trained by his predecessor. He also inherited local pay and benefit policies that were standard for the plant locale and were expected by the workforce. The new plant manager, finding these benefits and pay policies strange and out of tune with Stateside practices, abruptly rescinded them without consulting his team. The result was an immediate strike that closed the plant and created a power struggle with not only the hourly workforce but also with his management team. Production and peace were only restored when he was replaced.

These cases—and many others I am aware of—exemplify the abuse of managerial power provoking resentment and confusion among subordinates. A common pattern is that a manager seeks to exercise tight control over those who report to him, is dismissive of their opinions, reduces their range of discretion, and treats them disrespectfully. Such managerial behaviors usually evoke subordinate resistance leading to strained relationships and suboptimal performance. This effect is exacerbated when undue deference to the boss diverts efforts to accomplish the organization’s purposes. Even when a superior’s throwing one’s weight around is expected, people do not become inured to it. The use of the power associated with one’s hierarchical position to dominate others disrupts cooperative relations and strains claims of legitimacy.

Neglect

Vertical relationships can also be problematic when the party with greater power is guilty of neglect rather than abuse. Managerial passivity and withdrawal can be confusing for subordinates, for it deprives them of legitimate links with other parts of the system, access to adequate resources, and clear signals about adjustments in goals and operations. Nonresponsive managers are also seen by subordinates as being disrespectful and dismissive. When an active, cooperative relationship with one’s immediate supervisor is not available, confusion and frustration can degrade performance. Such conditions sometimes prompt more aggressive members to respond to the lack of contact with an aloof manager by making end runs to create informal links with essential contacts and resources. Though sometimes effective in the short run and often useful as a supplemental path to formal relationships, subordinates’ efforts to bypass the formal hierarchy do not substitute for systematic links with interdependent actors within a coherent organization. Those who pursue end-run strategies often seek to serve their own interests rather than those of the organization.

The roles of supervisors and managers are designed for them to be coordinators and intermediaries between individual contributors, interdependent work units, and other relevant parts of the organization. When supervisors are both accessible and responsive, they build open relationships with subordinates, foster their engagement with the organization, and facilitate appropriate connections with others who are important to the unit’s work. When they are remote and nonresponsive, those who report to them are likely to be both more isolated and less effective.

Deficient Empathy

The extremes of abuse and neglect do not cover the whole range of problematic leader behaviors. Even when managers are neither inappropriately dominant nor distant, subordinate reactions to the power differential between themselves and their manager can complicate inter-level collaboration. Managerial abuse and neglect represent missed opportunities to build cooperative relationships with those who report to them. These behaviors also reveal ignorance of the risks that unequal power and large power distances can entail. The core of concern is that relational tensions can get in the way of cooperative efforts if the manager does not recognize the needs of those reporting to him or her and seek to respond to these issues. Only when managers are sensitive to subordinate concerns about unequal power and status can they make informal adjustments to soften differences and close relational gaps with those who report to them. Managers may not be able to change formal allocations of power for their subordinates, but they can make their relationships with subordinates more open and flexible to increase member engagement and inclusion. Making this effort to foster cooperation can also lead to improvements in the vertical integration of the organization, which can improve the fit and continuous adjustment of strategy and operations.

Organizational Structures and Processes

Relationships among members of organizations can be defined in terms of both structures and processes. Formal structures define the responsibilities and powers of particular positions, and they also describe reporting relationships between levels as well as horizontal links between functions or geographically separated divisions. Processes refer to both planned and spontaneous interactions among actors shaping informal relationships that overlay and supplement the formal organization. They consist of information exchanges relevant to planning the