Power and Conflict

Conflict can simply be defined as any disagreement between two parties. The disagreement can be as a result of a struggle or contest between people with opposing needs, ideas, beliefs, values, or goals. Conflict on teams is inevitable; however, the results of conflict are not predetermined. Conflict can be perceived as something which disturbs the daily routine and causes emotional stress among peers, groups or an organisation. Reynolds and Kalish (2002) noted that, managers spend at least 25 % of their time resolving workplace conflicts. This actually shows how conflict can have bad effect in an organisation and decreases production.  According to Mullins (2007), there are nine main causes of conflict in the workplace. These are:

• Differences in perception: This is when people view the same incident in dramatically different ways. Bell (2002) gives an example of what might happen if a new administrative assistant were hired in an organisation. One employee might see the new hire as an advantage (one more set of hands to get the job done), while another colleague might see the same new hire as an insult (a clear message that the current employees are not performing adequately).

• Limited resources: This could be in the form of not having enough or less equipments when needed to complete a task.

• Division and separation into departments: This arises when employees are segregated based on their job description in the company and are accordingly assigned different positions.

• Overlapping and interlinking work activities: This is whereby an employee has to do more work that does not apply to his or her speciality due to a shortage in staff.

• Role conflict: This is whereby a person is expected to play two unsuitable roles together at the same time.

• Inequitable treatment: It is a situation whereby an employee feels that he or she is treated unfairly among his colleagues.

• Violation of territory: This occurs when an employee breaks the rules and regulations of a company such as ignoring all health and safety stipulations. 

• Environmental changes: This can be changes in the firm such as introducing new technology or changes in the pattern of new contracts.

• Individual conflict: Differences in interest, values and goals can cause clashes in personality.

Conflict might escalate and lead to non-productive results, or conflict can be beneficially resolved and lead to quality final products (Foundation Coalition, 2011). Generally, before a disagreement generates into a conflict, it goes through various stages as depicted in the conflict cycle in Figure 1 below.

                  Figure 1: Life cycle of a conflict

                  Source: Active for Peace (2010)

The peace building process in the cycle of a conflict (shown in Figure 1) can take place at any of these stages and depending on where or how it takes place, the graph can change into a peace building process or an escalation of violence (Active for Peace, 2010). 

During last summer, l had a part time job at Thistle hotel in Cheltenham. Initially, I found the job very interesting and saw it as a great opportunity to build upon my work experience. I was told during my induction that, I would be working during the weekdays since the company had permanent staffs who worked on Saturdays and Sundays. Into the third week of the job, the manager was putting me down on the rota to work on both Saturday and Sundays without asking if I was comfortable with the change since some of the permanent staff had started giving all sorts of excuses in order not to report for their assigned weekend shifts. I could not honour the request for me to join the weekend shifts because l was not informed and already had other commitments the weekend. The manager called me one Sunday morning asking me to come to work as soon as possible and l told him it was impossible for me to do so since it was a short notice. The manager in an attempt to address the issue, decided to ask other weekday staffs to do extra shifts during the weekend and just like me, most of them could not cope with the stressful nature of the job as they also felt they were being treated unfairly. This situation continued for weeks and months and therefore led to the Department recording its lowest retail eyes score in the year due to a decrease in performance of workers. The conflict between weekday and weekend staff could not be resolved and some of the staff including me decided to leave the company. This resulted in the Department not achieving its set goal of providing excellent service to customers.

Power is a measurement of an entity's ability to control its environment, including the behaviour of other entities (Greiner and Schein, 1988). In other words, it is the ability or capacity to do something or to control and influence what others do. It determines who makes decisions and what decisions are made. 

In a notable study of power conducted by French and Raven (1959), they established that, there are five bases of power namely: Coercive, Reward, Expert, Legitimate, and Referent. These are further explored below and presented diagrammatically in Figure 2.

                   Figure 2: Diagrammatic presentation of French and Raven's sources of power
                   Source: Google (2011)

Coercive power: This type of power involves treats and punishment. It forces people to do what they do not want to do. As noted by French and Raven (1959), other forms of power can also be used in coercive ways, such as when reward or expertise is withheld or referent power is used to threaten social exclusion. This source of power can often lead to problems and in many circumstances it involves abuse. Coercive power can cause unhealthy behaviour and dissatisfaction in the workplace (Mindtools, 2009). Threats and punishment are common tools of coercion. Governments mostly use this type of power as substantiated in the case of Colonel Gadhafi of Libya, as he was a dictator, and those who did not believe in his regime or were against him, would be brutally beaten or even murdered.

Reward power: This kind of power is the opposite of coercive power. This is because while coercive power uses punishment to control, reward power employs incentives to maintain legitimate power. Reward power involves having the ability to administer to another, things he or she desires or to remove or decrease things he or she does not desire. This type of power is based on the idea that people are more prone to do things and to do them well when they are getting something out of it (Molm, 1988). The most popular forms of rewards are increasing salary, promotions, and simply compliments. One shortfall of this kind of power is that, when available rewards are used up, or the rewards do not have enough perceived value to others, the power weakens (Mindtools, 2009). An example of this reward is evident when a company offers free shares every year to their staff in order for them to feel as owning a part of the company and increasing their job security which consequently results in high performance as practiced at Next.

Expert power: This power is associated with those who are typically specialist in their field of work, and rely on their ability to perform various organisational tasks and functions. It emanates from the level of knowledge and skills possessed. This power makes one able to combine the power of reward in the correct fashion (French and Raven, 1959). When someone has expert knowledge in an organisation, people are more convinced to trust them and to respect their opinions. An example of this is seen with the work of doctors as they administer drugs based on the diagnosis of a particular disease and convince patients to purchase a particular medication in order to alleviate their ailment. 

Legitimate power: Legitimate power is typically based on one's role. People traditionally obey the person with this power solely based on their position or title rather than the person specifically as a leader. Therefore this type of power can easily be dissolved with the loss of a position or title. This power is therefore not strong enough to be one's only form of influencing/persuading others. For example a police personnel directing traffic is obeyed by drivers and pedestrians due to the power he possess as a result of his position or title. The same personnel would lose this influence should he retire from the police service.

Referent power: The power of holding the ability to administer to others’ feeling of personal acceptance or personal approval (Hinkin and Schriesheim, 1989). This type of power is strong enough that the power-holder is often looked up to as a role model (Raven, 1988). This power is often looked at as admiration, or charm. The power derives from one person having an overall likability leading people to strongly identify with them in one form or another. A person with this type of power generally makes people feel good around them therefore one has a lot of influence. The responsibility involved is heavy and one can easily lose this power, but when combined with other forms of power it can be very useful. A typical example of this power is witnessed with celebrities in society which is why they can influence everything from what people buy to whom they elect to office, however, on the flip side; they also often lose it quickly in some circumstances as evidenced with the case of Tiger Woods. Referent power is also commonly seen among political and military figures.

An article on Work-related stress

Work-related stress have a large impact on an Organisation, this is because employees that feel stressed at work have more sick days off which can reduce the overall productivity of the business and lead to high staff turnover. Also, work-related stress can have bad effect on employees’ health. Health and Safety Executive (2003) reported after a research into offshore work that, approximately 70% of common work-related stressors are also potential root causes of accidents when they were caused by human error.

A news article from Kahn (2008) with the caption "Work-related stress can kill, study finds" and available at http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/23/us-heart-stress-idUSL2284632220080123 reported that, work really can kill providing the strongest evidence yet of how on-the-job stress raises the risk of heart disease by disrupting the body's internal systems.  The research team for the study conducted seven surveys over a 12-year period and found chronically stressed workers - people determined to be under severe pressure in the first two of the surveys - had a 68 % risk of developing heart disease.The article stated that, British civil servants are prone to stress at work due to less break from work and too much work pressure (Kahn, 2008). The link was strongest among people under 50. Behaviour and biological changes likely explain why stress at work causes heart disease, the article further reported. For one, stressed workers eat unhealthy food, smoke, drink and skip exercise - all behaviours linked to heart disease.

Commenting on this article, there is a connotation that, the responsibilities assigned to employees at the workplace should be reduced as ageing sets in owing to the fact that stress is also directly related to biological changes. However, this cannot be easily achieved considering the fact that employees sometimes subject themselves to some form of work-related stress as they decide to put in more effort in carrying about their duties especially when they feel a bit unsecured about their job especially when they are working in an organisation that is going through metamorphic changes under intense economic transformations and consequent pressures. Although, heart disease is closely linked to work-related stress as reported by the article, it is worth mentioning that other external factors such as family conflicts, employee lifestyle and individual employee temperaments (naturally high-tempered staff) all play a part in the degree to which an employee feels stressed at work.

In linking this to the lecture, it emphasises the fact that, work-related stress can be costly to an organisation as employees with heart-related diseases can sometimes be bed-stricken for a longer period resulting in absenteeism which subsequently leads to a reduction in overall productivity. At worse, an organisation can lose some of its well-skilled staff to death as a result of a disease linked with work-related stress.

CONCLUSION

In the workplace, a simple disagreement between team members, if unresolved, may escalate into avoidance, inability to work together, verbal assaults, and resentment. In the worst cases, it may also lead to hostility and eventual separation from the organisation. Therefore, it is important that the conflict be resolved as soon as possible. Although conflict is a normal part of organisational life, providing numerous opportunities for growth through improved understanding and insight, there is a tendency to view conflict as a negative experience caused by abnormally difficult circumstances. Understanding conflict and how it can be used for effective resolution strategies is important for effective communication and productivity in the workplace (Gatlin et al., 2008). 

While a conflict starts because of an issue of disagreement, there are usually background influences that fuel the conflict. The most important influence is power. Conflict is fuelled when the balance of power between different groups changes or is very uneven. Perhaps one group abuses their power, wants more power or fears losing their power or another group wants to challenge those in power in order to improve the balance of power (Tearfund Roots Resources, n.d.). The kind of power exerted by those in authority or employers also plays a vital role in determining how conflict can be resolved or escalated at the workplace. Thus, power can have a lot of influence on conflict, either positively or negatively. 

Research has shown work-related stress to have adverse effects for organisations in terms of employee commitment to work, staff performance and productivity, accidents caused by human error, staff turnover and intention to leave, attendance levels, staff recruitment and retention, customer satisfaction, organisational image and reputation as well as potential litigation (Health and Safety Executive, 2009). Good management is the key to managing the causes of work related stress.

 

REFERENCES

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