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Do Good Managers Need to Understand How Power and Authority Operates Within Organisations?

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NBS8007: Understanding Organisations
Question 1: Do good managers need to understand how power and authority operates within organisations?

Name: Surawich Channoi
Student Number: 110490551
Course: E-business (Information Systems)
Module Leader: Mr Ewan Mackenzie
Due Date: 10.12.2012
Word Count: 1509 In every organisation, it is common that there are several groups of staff with different positions work together as a company. In order to manage enormous amount of people, it is necessary to have good managers, leader of each department in an organisation. They will have to use various management tools in order to control and motivate their subordinates to work loyally and effectively, one of the most important tool is power. Finkelstein mentioned that "Power is defined here as the capacity of individual actors to exert their will" (Finkelstein, 1992). However, despite the fact that using power can manipulate and sustain company success, it is also able to create unpleasant effects if the reckless managers overuse or unable to manage it correctly. While some experts agree that power is an essential criterion to managers, there are evidences which point out the negative effects when the managers do not understand their authorities and cannot use power appropriately. Although, mismanaged application of power might lead to significant crisis in an organisation, this essay will attempt to illustrate that professional managers can make a good use of power as a viable method to achieve subordinates cooperation. In order to demonstrate this, it will first outline the basis of power which link to authority in rational and irrational ways and point out the result when leaders cannot manage power and authority in Thailand flood crisis in 2011. It will then show the benefits when managers have a deep insight into power and authority and use appropriate level of them

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