Colin Gautrey

Leveraging Greater Power

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Mustering power in complex environments is the essence of Influential Leadership and the successful implementation of political campaigns (which were covered in the last article, Political Campaign Planning). Power needs to be a serious consideration at the strategic planning stage. A strategy, on its own, no matter how good it is, will fail unless it is backed with sufficient power to overcome the inevitable resistance and opposition. Earlier in this series, you were encouraged to identify powerful stakeholders without considering what makes people powerful. This article will fill that gap and develop your ability to quantify what makes people powerful within your organisation. Stating the obvious, in order to leverage more power, you have to do more with what you have got, you have to increase your power and/or you have to get powerful people to lend their power to your cause. Here is a summary (taken from Influential Leadership) of what can make Read More

Power, Strategy and Organisational Structure

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Power is generally agreed to be the capacity to influence or get things done. Consequently, it has a massive impact on the decisions which an organisation makes. The more power you have, the more likely you are to be able to realise your objectives. So, it is natural that individuals and groups will be seeking power. Usually, the power structures within an organisation emerge as a result of strategy, performance, environment and ambition. Rarely are they created deliberately to match the strategy of the venture. Therefore, power is more of an output than an input. Yet, this is a little bizarre when you consider that the vast majority of decisions made by organisations are significantly shaped by the power positions of the interested parties. When agendas within an organisation so often appear to be conflicting, ignoring the power dynamics at the design (or restructure stage) is an omission which puts the realization of strategy into doubt.

Questions People Don't Ask

Since power trumps logic Read More

Group, Organisational, Formal and Informal Power

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You will probably have noticed that much of the phrasing above suggests personal ownership of assets or skills. This is true; however, the same also applies to groups of individuals or even entire organisations. The combined effect of their individual assets and skills can become far more than the sum of their parts. This is what we usually refer to as group or organisational power. Common statements we hear about power include:
  • “Marketing has the power to push that one through.”
  • “How come Sales always seem to get what they want?”
Although much of this is related to the combined Read More

Exercise: How Power Works in Your Organisation

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It is not sufficient to just read about power, you need to think about it too. How does what you are reading relate to the environment where you work, or you wish to be successful? That is the purpose of this exercise. Naturally, we are assuming that you have already read the references below which provide the background concepts and ideas. Take around 30 minutes and consider the following questions... Read More

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