Steering decisions, doing favors and attracting allies.


No one likes a power grabber, but there’s nothing inherently obnoxious about building and applying authority to help your company or organization achieve its goals.

Good employees with good ideas almost always face antagonism from entrenched interests. In these cases, one needs power to prevail in the inevitable political battle. But formal authority - the kind that shows up in organizational charts - doesn’t always work with peers or superiors, and it generates stiff resistance when used nakedly or illegitimately.

Sometimes, informal power can be much more effective, and it doesn’t have to follow a hierarchy. Such influence can be exercised, say, by an executive assistant who controls a vice president’s calendar, or by a midlevel manager who trumpets her team’s outstanding sales record - but leaves out its soaring costs - when seeking a budget increase.

The simplest to spot is the power of personal characteristics, which is more than just charisma. Just as some individuals appreciate certain traits, like kindness or empathy, organizations also value personality types.

One source of power that transcends the traditional hierarchy is control over resources. This exists when someone has the discretion to withhold an important resource - whether something tangible, like a signature on an expense form, or intangible, like access to a senior executive or information about how to use a piece of software. Executive assistants, benefits managers and others can have immense powers of resource control.

An equally effectual power base involves control of a different kind, over the premises of a decision. Just because you don’t have the power to make a decision doesn’t mean you can’t steer its outcome. A savvy employee knows how to order, emphasize and withhold information when making a presentation. Some meeting organizers place controversial issues at the end of a long meeting, when everyone is too tired to put up a fight.

In 1959, two social psychologists - Bertram Raven and John French - laid out a rigorous analysis of power in society, which remains the basis of the field today. Among their discoveries was that attempts to influence others work best when perceived as legitimate. One source of legitimacy is reciprocity, the nagging sense of obligation felt when someone does you a favor.

This “favor bank” mentality is the root of another informal base of power: alliances. Whether between peers or a mentor and mentee, alliances involve an exchange of support or resources that can be banked, owed or redeemed.

Effective power brokers build alliances all around an organization, so they can withdraw support if needed or build a reputation for being able to do so.

A reputation for power is another potent base. Everyone loves a good-natured boss, but a boss incapable of exercising authority is asking for trouble. Instead, it often pays to exercise power early and visibly.


Daniel Sorid is a graduate student at Columbia Business School.