Authority, Power & Politics
Dr. Len Elovitz
Chapters 6 &12 in Hoy &
Miskel
POWER
The ability to influence thought and
behavior
The ability for A to get B to do what B
would normally not do
Authority
Often used interchangeably with power.
I believe authority needs to be granted by
a third party
In this context think of the most powerful
individual you know in an organization.
What was the source of his/her power?
What assumptions did he/she have about
subordinates?
What strategies did/he or she employ?
What were the consequences of his/her
actions?
Sources of Power – French &
Raven
Reward Power – controlling rewards will
induce others to comply
Coercive Power – potential of punishment
Expert Power – Having knowledge that
others want for themselves compels them
to comply
Legitimate Power – Holding a position of
authority in the organization
Referent Power – Personal Charisma
Sources of Authority - Sergiovanni
Bureaucratic
Personal
Technical-rational
Professional
Moral
Bureaucratic - Source
Hierarchy
Rules And Regulations
 Mandates
Role Expectation
Teachers Are Expected To Comply Or Face
The Consequences
Bureaucratic - Assumptions
Teachers Are Subordinates
Teachers Can’t Be Trusted
Supervisors Are Trustworthy
Supervisors’ And Teachers’ Goals Differ
Supervisors Must Be Watchful
Supervisors Know More Than Teachers
External Accountability Works Best
Bureaucratic - Strategies
Expect and Inspect
Hold teachers to predetermined standards
Directly supervise and closely monitor
Determine teacher needs and In-service
them
Find out how to motivate teacher and get
them to change
Bureaucratic - Consequences
With proper monitoring, teachers respond
as technicians in executing predetermined
scripts
Teachers’ performance is narrowed
Personal - Source
Motivation technology
Interpersonal skills
Human relations leadership
Teachers will want to comply because of the
congenial climate provided and to reap
rewards offered in exchange.
Personal - Assumptions
Supervisors’ And Teachers’ Goals Differ but
can be bartered so each gets what they want
Meet teachers’ needs & the work gets done
Congenial climate makes teachers content,
easier to work with & more apt to cooperate
Supervisors must be expert at handling
people to increase compliance &
performance
Personal - Strategies
Develop a congenial school
climate
Expect and reward
What gets rewarded gets
done
Personal - Consequences
Teachers respond as required
when rewards are available but
not otherwise.
Performance is narrowed
Technical Rationality - Source
Evidence by logic and
scientific research
Teachers comply in light of
what is considered to be the
truth
Technical Rationality - Assumptions
Supervision & teaching are applied
sciences
Knowledge & research is privileged
Scientific knowledge supercedes
practice
Teachers are skilled technicians
Values, preferences & beliefs don’t
count - facts & objective evidence do
Technical Rationality - Strategies
Use research to identify the best
practice
Standardize the work of teachers
In-service teachers in the best
practice
Monitor to insure compliance
Technical Rationality - Consequences
With proper monitoring, teachers
respond as technicians in executing
predetermined scripts.
Performance is narrowed
Professional - Source
Informed knowledge of craft
Personal expertise
Teacher responds on the basis of
professional values, accepted
tenets of practice, and internalized
expertness
Professional - Assumptions
No one best way exists
Scientific knowledge is to inform
not to prescribe practice
Acceptance of authority comes
from within the teacher
Supervisor is respected for
knowledge, training & experience
Professional - Strategies
Promote a dialogue among teachers to
determine accepted practices
Provide teachers with as much discretion as
they want or need
Require teachers to hold each other
accountable
Make available assistance, support &
professional development opportunities
Professional - Consequences
Teachers respond to professional
norms and thus little monitoring is
required.
Performance is expansive.
Moral - Source
Full obligation and duties derived
from widely shared community
values, ideas and ideals
Teachers respond to shared
commitments and felt
interdependence
Moral - Assumptions
Schools are professional learning
communities
Schools are defined by their shared
values, beliefs & commitments
What is right and good is as
important as what works & is
effective
Collegiality is a professional virtue
Moral - Strategies
Promote collegiality
Rely on teachers to respond to their
own sense of duties and obligations
Rely on teachers informal norm
system to enforce professional and
community values
Moral - Consequences
Teachers respond to community
values for moral reasons
Performance is expansive and
sustained.
Sergiovanni
Supervision I
Bureaucratic
Personal
Technical-rational
Supervision II
Professional
Moral
Politics
Individuals form coalitions in order to
influence decision making and procedures
Examples
Gender
Age
Department
Ethnic group
Internal interests
External interests
External Coalitions
Try to bring their own interests and power to bear in the
activities and decision making practices
 Related
Union
PTA
Band Parents
 Unrelated
Taxpayers groups
Professional Organizations
Political (capital P)
Mitzberg (1983)
Dominated External Coalition
Powerful coalition that dominates not only
internal coalitions but the school and district
leadership as well
Divided External Coalition
One or more groups with conflicting opinions
such as conservative v progressive.
Can politicize the BOE
Passive External Coalition
The number of outside groups increase to
the point where their power becomes defuse
and limited
Apathy takes over
Power Game
Hirshman (1970) - Participants have 3
options
Leave- find another place – exit
Stay and play : try to change the system –
voice
Stay and contribute as expected- loyalty
Those who leave cease to be influencers,
loyals do not participate as active
influencers, those who speak out become
players in the power game
Is this an oversimplification?
Are there other roles that you can think of
in the power game?
The destroyer – disloyal
The instigator – signifier
The nut – who knows
Mitzberg again
“internal politics is typically clandestine
and illegitimate because it is designed to
benefit the individual or group, usually at
the expense of the organization; therefore,
the most common consequences of
politics are divisiveness and conflict.”
Do you agree?
Political Tactics
Ingratiating – Gain favors by doing favors
Networking – Gain influence by courting
individuals
Information Management – Manipulate
information to one’s advantage
Impression Management – Create a
positive image by appearence
Coalition Building – Band together with
others to achieve mutual goals
Scapegoating – Shift the blame to others
for bad outcomes (circle of blame)
Increasing Indispensability – Make oneself
indispensable to the organization
LEADERSHIP
Leadership Defined
 “Leadership is a process of social
influence in which one person is able to
enlist the aid and support of others in the
accomplishment of a common task.”
 Martin Chemers
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
38
Power and Leadership
 Leadership is a group function: it occurs only
when 2 or more people interact.
 Leaders intentionally seek to influence the
behavior of others.
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
39
Are leadership and administration
synonymous?
Administrators are concerned with efficiency
and stability.
Leaders are concerned with change and
gaining consensus on what needs to be done
Leadership and
Management
 Are these terms are mutually exclusive?
 One manages things, not people, and one
leads people, not things.
We manage finances, inventories and programs, but
we lead people.
 Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus have said that
“managers are people who do things right and
leaders are people who do the right thing.”
ELCC Standard 2 vs. 3
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
41
Leadership and Management
(continued)
 Nevertheless, school leaders must be both managers
and leaders.
 Bureaucracies, using the factory model, were and still
are typically managed, not led.
 Many schools were and still are managed, not led.
 US schools are generally in need of better leadership.
 Leaders empower followers and do not play Theory X
soft games.
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
42
Adaptive Leadership
Leaders need to deal with two types of
circumstances:
Technical problems—clear cut.
The busses are late
Teacher quits
Adaptive problems—complex issues.
Curriculum change
Restructuring of grade levels
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
43
Leadership as a Relationship
With Followers
 Leaders (not authority figures) relate to
followers in ways that:
Motivate them to unite in a shared vision.
Arouse their personal commitment to the vision.
Organize the working environment to make the
envisioned goals central in the organization.
Facilitate the work of followers to transform the
vision into reality.
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
44
Leadership as a Relationship
With Followers (continued)
 How leaders do these things is defined in terms of the
character and quality of the relationship between leaders
and followers.
 Leaders who accept Theory X assumptions about
followers are traditional “bosses”.
e.g. Machiavelli’s The Prince.
e.g. Max Weber’s “bureaucracy”.
 Leaders who accept Theory Y assumptions about
followers see leadership as collaborating with others to
reach organizational goals, thus creating a growth
enhancing environment.
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
45
Transforming Leadership
James MacGregor Burns published Leadership
in 1978. This work has influenced most scholars
of leadership ever since.
Burns distinguished:
Transactional leadership results in quid pro quo
transactions between leaders and followers.
Transformational leadership seeks to satisfy higher
order needs of followers and engages them fully,
elevating them into leaders.
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
46
Moral Leadership
 The concept of moral leadership contains three
related ideas:
There is a genuine sharing of mutual needs,
aspirations, and values.
Followers have the latitude in responding to the
initiatives of leaders, and that they have the ability to
make informed choices. They voluntarily grant
power to the leaders.
Leaders take responsibility for delivering on
commitments and representations made to
followers.
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
47
A Progression
 A progression inherent in transforming leadership:
 At the lowest level, is the exercise of power by leaders, which
is not leadership at all.
 Transactional leadership is entry-level leadership where leader
bargain with followers.
 In transforming (or transformational) leadership followers
engage in a common cause with leaders.
 At the highest level, moral leadership involves shared vision, a
sense of mutual purpose, and shared values woven into daily
life to inspire new and higher levels of commitment and
involvement.
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
48
A Process of Growth and
Development
 Transformational and moral leadership increasingly
draw on higher levels of motivation of followers, which
leads to not only compliance, but also of personal
commitment to the goals of the organization.
 In Dan Lortie’s famous Schoolteacher research, he
concludes that teachers are motivated by feeling
successful and effective in their teaching.
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
49
Implications for leaders
Foster a culture that facilitates teaching
and enhances the likelihood that one will
be successful at it.
Energize and applaud the efforts of
teachers
Reward and support success in teaching
Celebrate teaching as the central value of
the school
Leadership and Vision
One of the pivotal tasks of leadership is to
engage constantly in a dynamic process of
stating a vision of things to come, revising in
light of new ideas and restating the vision of
“where we are and where we are going”.
Examples: Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King,
Abraham Lincoln.
Reflective practice in visioning is rethinking
assumptions, beliefs, and values and either
reaffirming or revising them. As opposed to
Reflexive – Do it as we always do it
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
51
Whose Vision Is It,
Anyway?
 Leaders have something important to say about the
vision and should have a clearly thought-out vision of
the future.
 Yet, leaders should avoid imposing their own prepared
statements for ratification.
 Leaders must demonstrate convincingly their interest in
collegiality and shared leadership to shift the norms of
the school’s culture from traditional to collaborative.
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
52
Manipulation and
Empowerment
 Critical theory is a form of social criticism that holds that
institutionalized oppression of groups of people in society is often
supported by those oppressed as they are led to believe that the
system operates in their best interest. (Stockholm syndrome?)
 Critical theorists have applied their theories to schools, principals,
and teachers.
 Some schools mandate compliance to school goals or that teachers
embrace the organizational culture.
 Where empowerment occurs however:
 Teachers participate actively in processes of leadership.
 They acquire greater personal ownership and commitment to values that
shape the vision.
 They are stimulated to increase their awareness of the larger mission of
the school and the connection of their own daily work to the vision and
mission.
Copyright (c) Allyn & Bacon 2007
53
Sustainable Leadership
 Michael Fullan:
Sustainable leadership is “the capacity of a system to
engage in the complexities of continuous
improvement consistent with deep values of human
purpose.”
 Hargreaves and Fink:
“Sustainable educational leadership and
improvement preserves and develops deep learning
for all that spreads and lasts, in ways that do no harm
to and indeed create positive benefit for others
around us, now and in the future.”
Are Leaders Born?
Aristotle thought so – What do you think?
What are the traits of successful leaders?
Early Trait Research – 1948
Stogdill reviewed 124 trait studies of the
following factors associated with leadership
Capacity- intelligence, alertness, verbal facility
originality, judgment
Achievement- scholarship, knowledge,
Responsibility – dependability, initiative, persistence,
aggressiveness, self-confidence, desire to excel
Participation – activity, sociability, cooperation,
adaptability, humor
Status – socioeconomic position, popularity
Findings
The following traits consistently
differentiated leaders from non-leaders:
Above average intelligence
Dependability
Participation
Status
The rest was confusing and uneven leading
him to conclude that there is not a set
combination of traits that result in an
individual becoming a leader
More recent research
Focus switched to what traits were
associated with a successful leader.
Personality traits: self-confidence, stress
tolerance, emotional maturity, integrity,
extroversion
Motivation: interpersonal needs,
achievement orientation, power needs,
expectations, self-efficacy
Skills: technical, interpersonal, conceptual
Situational leadership
Strong reaction against the concept of
born leaders lead researchers to study the
characteristics of the leadership setting.
Theory - Leaders are made by the
situation
Factors studied – subordinates,
organization characteristics, internal
environment, external environment
Peter Principle
Current thinking
To restrict thinking to one of the following:
Leaders are Born
Leaders are Made
Leadership is Determined by the situation
is counterproductive
Servant Leadership – Robert Greenleaf
Servant-leaders achieve results for their
organizations by giving priority attention to
the needs of their colleagues and those
they serve. Servant-leaders are often
seen as humble stewards of their
organization's resources (human, financial
and physical).
 Wikipedia
Aspects of being a servant leader
In order to be a servant leader, one needs
the following qualities: listening, empathy,
healing, awareness, persuasion,
conceptualization, foresight, stewardship,
growth and building community. Acquiring
these qualities tend to give a person
authority versus power.
From Greenleaf’s Essay - 1970
 “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural
feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious
choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply
different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the
need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire
material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first
are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and
blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.
The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the
servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority
needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to
administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they,
while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more
autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?
And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will
they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”