Heal-INC: Monica's Three Sources Of Power

After many successful years at Heal-INC, Monica, a very ambitious woman known for her expertise, takes on “project Hippocrates” as a program manager. While working on the project with the same focus and energy she did with all her previous endeavors at the company, she mistakenly fell in a very individualistic role without paying attention to her peers knowing that Ralph parker, VP of signal Proc. Design, is “politically aggressive” and he could be a “major road block”. Monica used the same upward appeal influence tactics relying on her good relationship with the president of the company, Gary Dorr, as he once said to her “ he thought of her as HEAL-INC daughter”.
Monica had 3 sources of power: Expert, information and legitimate power. Expert and information power come from the several years of success at HEAL-INC and the continuous focus and dedication she put tackling project Hippocrates by “creating a task force”,” recruiting members from other departments” and “creating cross-department signal processor study group”. Her legitimate power comes from higher positions in the organizational chart since she “developed exceptional relationship with Gary Dorr, the current president of HEAL-INC”.
Parker, on the other hand, used a coercive power to instill fear and withdrawal of support for Monica.
He constantly challenged her and provoked her. Although he lacked the expert and information power as “Parker had no solid data and his presentation was devoid of content and filled with glib assertions and pronouncements” however “he has done so much behind-closed-doors political
maneuvering”.

Besides her assumption of having an upward appeal influence tactic briefly discussed above given her relationship with Dorr, Monica based her actions also on a rational influence tactic which was demonstrated by “backing up her views with data“ and when she handled accusations by “providing more accurate information”. She relied on this tactic disregarding an important contributing factor to her success, which was to build healthy relationship and “deal with the politics at the top”.

Recommendation

Monica cannot look at her future endeavors relying on her past performance. She sank into a very individualistic role without paying attention to the power of collaboration and being a team player. Had she informally met with parker, she would have at least built a sense of liking and praise, which would have helped smoothen her relationship with him and possibly collaborated on “project Hippocrates”. She definitely needs to adapt her tactics using consultation and inspirational appeal. This will help her establish better relationships with all members across the hierarchy