How to Grow Your Personal Power Within Your Workplace
At some point in your career, you’re going to need to get things done that rely on a whole bunch of people. Or, you're going to want that promotion or next job that always seemed out of reach. Maybe you just want recognition for the work you're doing from your boss.
To do all that, you’re going to need to grow your personal power.
Will people listen because you’re the boss? What if you’re not the boss? Will they buy-in because of your fancy graduate degree and accomplishments? Do you have to get people to like you first? Do you have to show how capable you are? Or, how connected you are?
I’m here to tell you that it takes much more than likability, degrees, and great performance to go from powerless to powerful in an organization. I’m going to share a few tactics to build your personal power, based on research.
What is power in organizations?
To keep it simple, let’s say that organizational power is the ability to influence the behaviour of others and resist unwanted influence in return (Johns & Saks, 2020).
There are a couple of things to note with this definition:
You already have power, but you may not be using it optimally
(e.g. maybe you know something your boss doesn’t that could help the organization)Power depends in large part on how people perceive you
(e.g. your reputation precedes you)
There are also many sources of power, but I’m going to focus on what Patricia Bradshaw (1998) calls “elements of surface-personal power” in her article “Power as Dynamic Tension and its Implications for Radical Organizational Change.” Personal power, according to Bradshaw, encompasses your:
skills;
behaviours;
possessions; and,
qualities
How to grow your personal power in organizations
Let’s start off by contextualizing this. Your power will be influenced by where in the world you work, the exact office within which you work, the organizational structure and culture of your workplace, etc.
Instead of going into all of that right now, I want to focus on a few things YOU can do TODAY to up-level your personal power. Here is my adaptation of a few (not all) of Bradshaw’s (1998) elements of surface-personal power.
1) Level-up your expertise and experience
Gaining additional training and experience to grow my personal power felt like my go-to growing up.
Don’t feel confident? Go get a certification.
Don’t know how to do a thing? Volunteer to work on a project that will get you the exposure you need.
For example, gaining expertise in certain sports landed me my first legit jobs as a 16 year old. Gaining expertise in leadership and people management landed me my first supervisory positions in my late teens.
Growing your personal power through education is straightforward and important because it gives you knowledge power and expert power. And education need not be expensive or time consuming given all of the online and informal ways of learning these days.
As for experience, not all are equal! Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1977) observed that people who get involved in these types of activities/experiences within organizations (like projects, committees, working groups, etc.) acquire power:
extraordinary activities;
visible and higher profile activities; and/or,
relevant activities to your organization’s needs.
Look around your organization or community to find extraordinary, visible and/or relevant activities to get involved with.
Getting additional education and experience is a solid way to develop your personal power, but it’s not the only way.
2) Use the formal power you already have (ethically)
This is sometimes referred to as role power or positional power because its associated with your title or job function.
Whether you intentionally flex your title or postion power or not, it shapes how people perceive and respond to you.
When you’re the parent, the child is taught to listen. When you’re the bus driver, you’re the authority figure on the bus. In most bureaucratic organizations, if you’re the boss, people will tend to defer to you because they need your approval to get certain things done.
Similarly, in my dojo, I don’t wear the black belt to have power, but I can’t deny that wearing my black belt makes me an authority in my students’ eyes.
The same thing happens with the position you have in your organization.
Your position comes with formal power, limitations, and expectations. I encourage you to rise to those expectations and use whatever positional power you have for the good of your community.
If you’re on the hunt for a job, search for the type of formal power that makes you happy and effective.
Do you want control over financial resources? Decisions? Certain people and skills sets? Intellectual resources? Yourself/personal freedom? Power can come from many types of resources and not everyone is happy and effective having power over the same things.
Just know that when you exercise formal power, it'll be received differently. In general:
Coercing people may lead to resistance.
Your team or peers be like:
“What an a-hole!” (possibly behind your back?)Using only rewards and punishment may lead to compliance.
Your team or peers be like:
“Do I even have a choice?” (sigh)Overly relying only on your legitimate power (the boss effect) may also leave you with compliance.
Your team or peers be like:
“OK…”Leveraging expert power is more likely to lead to commitment.
Your team or peers be like:
“That makes sense! Count me in!”Using referent power (see the next section) is very likely to lead to commitment.
Your team or peers be like:
“Yes! What are we waiting for?! Let’s do this!”
3) Cultivate referent power by building trust and respect
This is my favourite way of developing personal power. Bradshaw (1998) recommends building referent power by cultivating respect and trust by exercising personal integrity, charisma, and group affiliation.
This is huge!
Be very intentional about being energetically present with your boss, peers, colleagues, networks and clients. Consciously choose your behaviours when you’re with them.
Integrity: Is what you say, do, think and feel in harmony? Take an objective look. Ask people you trust to give you an honest opinion of your level of integrity.
Charisma: When I’m on my A game as a speaker, some participants will usually ask for advice on being charismatic. I encourage them to talk about something they’re passionate about and to watch how they become more animated. You have charisma in you.
Group affiliation: Hang out with the cool kids. Just kidding! Be a team player, show up, step up, reciprocate, offer to assist, and volunteer for committees inside and outside of your organization to grow your personal power. In this time of physical distancing, it’s still important to socialize, check-in, and participate. Don’t close yourself off to others. In a virtual environment, schedule time with people you would normally see in the office to keep connected!
4) Acquire power through association
For Bradshaw (1998), this is power or influence that comes from being associated with powerful people. I’m a little hesitant writing this section because I’m not advocating that you should suck up to your bosses.
What I’m saying is simply that personal power is bolstered when people perceive that you have positive relationships with people in power. Simply put, people are drawn to people with (or who are close to) power. It just seems to be a thing.
The good news is that in 2020 it’s easier to build authentic connections with leaders of organizations because our organizations tend to be flatter. At the same time, since it’s easier there’s potentially a lot more noise out there so you have to find the right way to connect with the right people of influence.
Don’t throw spaghetti at the wall and hope it will stick.
Think about your ultimate ikigai, then map out potential (powerful) people in your network and your network’s network who might be interested in supporting someone like you.
In my case, I’d say 9/10 of my mentors came from tip #5.
5) Combine all of the above into a coherent strategy
You’ve all heard that good networking is about who you know. However, in my opinion, GREAT networking is about who knows you as a result of how you do your work.
By “how you do your work”, I don’t actually mean focusing on accomplishments. In fact, the research shows that job accomplishments matter less than many other factors when it comes to being promoted and growing personal power.
Instead, think more holistically and proactively about all the things we’ve talked about:
Have you demonstrated expertise and experience that actually resonate with others in the organization?
Have you made the most of the influence that you have within your current position? Has that influence led to ethical and positive outcomes for others?
Do people trust and respect you? Do they see you as a person of integrity?
Do people in power, including your boss(es), back you up?
And don't forget, with great power comes great responsibility. Don't abuse it.
Let me know what’s worked for you or what questions or recommendations you have when it comes to growing your personal power in organizations.
There’s a LOT more I could write about on this topic, but let’s start here. What else do you want to know about power in organizations? Let me know via social media @DavidIpYam.
Thanks for reading and I hope you found what you were looking for.
David Ip Yam