A Speech on Developing personal power in an organization

Good (—) to all of you present here. Today I would like to express my thoughts on developing personal power in an organization. According to Frederick Mann, a successful entrepreneur, and author of The Economic Rape of America, “Personal power is the ability to achieve what you want. More than anything else, it is personal power that brings you success and happiness. The biggest barrier to success in almost any endeavor is powerlessness, negativity, helplessness, and inertia. They belong together. The problem is not only our powerlessness but also the powerlessness of those around us.” 

A person cannot be an effective leader if he does not have personal power. Having personal power means having the power to control yourself and others. Thus personal power is an important requirement of a leader. One of the best ways to understand and harness one’s power is knowing their emotional intelligence (EI).

Peter Salovey and John Mayer have defined emotional intelligence as “the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior.” Companies can incorporate EI as part of their training programs. This might help employees know a lot of information about themselves as to where they are mentally and emotionally. This gives them a measure of their power gradient and will know much effort they have to take to make it full-fledged.

Power can be inherited as the promotion to different positions, and sometimes the power of a normal employee can be felt as he asserts it and people respect them. According to researchers French and Raven, there are five bases of power namely legitimate power, reward power, coercive power, expert power, and referent power.

There are a few ways to develop personal power based on Goldman’s five main EI constructs. The first way is to have self-awareness. Being self-aware means knowing oneself, one’s strengths, weaknesses, emotions, behaviors, etc. By being self-aware, one will know how to make appropriate decisions for oneself and will be able to trust themselves with the decisions they are taking.

The second way is self-regulation, which involves regulating or controlling one’s negative emotions and impulses and changing them aptly according to circumstances. It is the ability to adapt to changing situations. One must know how to behave in certain situations. This gives you power over your emotions. The third way is to have good social skills and know-how to manage people and move them in the desired direction.

With good interpersonal skills, one can motivate others and bring them together. The fourth way is to have empathy towards others and to consider others while making decisions and implementations. The fifth way is to motivate oneself and others to achieve collective goals. 

In an organization, it is important to know the value of personal power. By following and implementing the mentioned ways, employees can develop personal power in an organization.

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