This question in a tertiary business course calls for an explanation of the French and Raven five bases of power.

Introduction to the French and Raven five bases of power

French and Raven advocates the five sources of power in the organization. The five bases of power refers to the coercive power, reward power, legitimate power, expert power, and referent power.

Coercive power

Coercive power is a power based on fear. A boss who behaves like a dictator has coercive power.

Reward power

A manager who has the hiring and firing power, as well as the promotional power has the reward power. Those employees who want to gain promotion know better than to offend their manager.

Legitimate power

Legitimate power is the power accord to the person holding a certain position. For example, the President of America has the power to represent the country to sign binding treaty.

The Finance Manager in the company has the power to authorize payments. The HR Manager has the power to make hiring decision.

Expert power

A person with expert knowledge has expert power. If the person has rare and indepth knowledge of a subject, he is hard to replace. He enjoys job security that comes with expert power.

In a restaurant, a chef is treated like a king, since he possesses expert power. Once the chef leaves, the restaurant loses the customers who come mainly for the signature dish.

Referent power

Referent power is based on the relationship with an important person. A secretary has referent power due to her close working relationship with the boss.

Conclusion

Many people in the organization hold different power. Nobody, not even the boss, has absolute power.

Many bosses fear that their employees with the expert power resign and serve the competitors. That is why the person with the expert power has job security.

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             Exhibiting influence is one of the fundamental desires of man. In a temporal and materialistic sense, nothing feels better than to control others and influence them. These principles result in mankind’s desire and continual quest for power and influence. To go along with Machiavelli’s notion that power comes from imposing will and chance, power is given an origin that society judges based on the magnitude of its influence and the submissiveness of those influenced. However, Machiavelli fails to see that power is best exerted with virtue and without competition.

            The origins of power are clear. Since power can be applied to any setting, it either originates from someone who exhibits greater will or someone who is given power (chance). You can be given power by nature (i.e. strong and smart versus useless and unintelligent) or nurture (i.e. family success and skillful upbringing). Someone can also work harder at what they do (imposing will). Since power is also a social phenomenon, someone who grooms themselves and works at their appearance gains power in the social context for example. Pure power comes from the triumph of will over chance. When someone has control to exert influence by their will instead of luck, they exhibit pure power that allows them to effectively control their surroundings in a sustainable and direct way. This is also called absolute power. (This is why absolute power corrupts absolutely because the influence is unstoppable).

            Power is best defined by its influence. Legitimate power is more a result of imposing will then chance. Absolute power, as previously stated, is entirely constructed of imposing will. Thus, the more direct the relationship between will and power, the more validity the power obtains.

            Machiavelli argues that power is best exerted for self-preservation and advantage. However, this aids society little if at all. In many scenarios, cooperative effort produces a greater result than competition. Imagine if researches could find intrinsic motivation equal to their current extrinsic motivation, but instead we devoted resources to specialized and separate tasks. The result would be a greater production of greater research functioning similarly to a smooth economy. The only difference is economies run based on competition to motivate people. Machiavelli ignores this intrinsic component implying it is not real. However, when just means are used to reach a just end, power does not corrupt in any respect. Undesirable means may reach desirable ends in one respect, but Machiavelli fails to gauge the other external effects of these means. Thus power is best used by intrinsic motivation for a just end using healthy means.