Introduction
Four years ago, I was appointed as the assistant manager for digital sales and marketing at General Motors Company, Europe region, after joining the Company six years earlier. The regional role granted me a chance and visibility to offer my services and extend the sales and marketing of the Company to Europe and globally since I was appointed as the digital assistant manager. At this point, I truly experienced and exercised powers under my jurisdiction. I was principally analyzing the past sales and undertaking a comparison with the current sales. I was supposed to report all the analysis to the regional manager sales and marketing, Europe region.
In addition, all the analysis undertaken was also primarily reported to the Information Technology manager. Things worked quite well when I was reporting to the IT manager and the sales manager until the program was changed, where I was offered a role to channel all the reports to the head office. After a year of sales report analysis, the head office sales and marketing manager acknowledged my analysis since my sales and marketing techniques were a perfect differentiator in the market. In this paper, I will assess the power dynamics in the job, organization, and the industry, identify the major power players, what they valued, the valued resources each of them possessed, coalitions and alliances, and insights derived from the experience and my personality score.
Power Dynamics in Job, Organization, and Industry
The assessment of the power dynamics starts with a review of the GM corporation culture that I have worked for the past six years. Since I became part of the Corporation, we have had an appreciative culture. With the achievers’ award-winning R&R solutions, the best achievers were credited with redeemable points for a reward of their choosing. However, there were other awards during the appraisal of the employees where those who incredibly achieved were promoted to top positions and their performance tracked. The employees who underperformed for quite some time were relocated to a technology center for consolidation. The disadvantage of the relocation was that people could be granted less time to improve their performance. Thus, the human resource management could not explicitly evaluate the eventual and earned skills of the employees.
Analyzing and examining the setting allowed me to scrutinize the power dynamics within my job and responsibilities. Mark, the regional manager for sales and marketing, Europe, has been in the organization for the last 15 years and has worked for seven years as the sales and marketing manager. He was educative, supportive, and always wanted to see his team succeed in all aspects. He was often obsessed with learning from anybody he had ever worked with and was quick with knowing the new trends in the field.
The IT consultant manager, Kurt, was among the senior-most personnel in the region with over 23 years in the Company. He had worked with management responsibilities with the company and knew how to handle and collaborate with employees. It was my first time to undertake such a responsibility; however, during my tenure, I received most of the achievers’ awards for an incredible performance within my region and the good research I did regarding the uncertainties in my department. I was then assigned to lead the mentorship programs established within GM, seeking to mentor and improve other employees.
Based on the major power players, not forgetting the positional powers, the two managers I worked with in my region had a strong sense of formality in exercising their powers. They could both collaborate to assist in solutions to problems and allocate the required resources whenever the need arises. In my position, I was reputed for my expertise within digital sales and marketing, and it was therefore interpersonal. The major source of my power was an extensive and massive knowledge in external knowledge on digital sales and marketing coupled with good mastery of IT sales techniques.
Kurt was majorly motivated by the company’s constant growth, and he was known for his aggressive character, who wanted to always win in all situations and take credit for the same. Consequently, Mark was a person who over-relied on employee self-management and would want his presence felt in all aspects of work to make things go straight. I decided to work to the best of my ability to ensure that my department sold more GM products to earn more revenue. Therefore, it motivated junior employees to work smart and earn the company an incredible performance. From valued resources perspective, Kurt had control over my powers due to his control of IT databases that matter during my work. In addition, he was a part of my analysis that I performed and approved every niche of tasks I did. Dr. O’Brian, on the other end, had a say in everything that I did since he was based in the head office and used to decide on everything from our region. He was the one who approved budgets that we prepared whenever we needed the resources.
I had an alliance with my team in terms of coalitions and alliances since I was their head within digital sales and marketing. Kurt was my supervisor, and we had established a good working collaboration with him, so I can say we had a distinctive alliance. Dr. O’Brian, on the other hand, had less coalition with me since we had only worked for a short time. Mark, Kurt, and I had a strong coalition as we all had to work closely to ensure that we achieved our set targets daily. Above all, we had a strong coalition with Kurt, given that he controlled the IT infrastructure, and every time I had to ask him permission to grant me access to the servers. The table below shows GM’s authority as assistant sales manager and sales manager.
Table 1: Duties and Roles of Assistant Sales Manager and Sales Manager
The Politics and Dynamics in the Workplace
In the political environment I was working within, political dynamics occurred. There exists a correlation between the two departments I was working with since IT provides a platform to undertake sales and marketing. Therefore, there was a conjoint dependency in the two sections. Things began to work differently as soon as the usual work and how we reported daily tasks was transferred to the head office. The IT sales and marketing team were relatively large, and the GM saw the need to cut its expenditure.
The GM production had gone down due to unavailability of essential materials, so a reduction in production meant that some employees were to be discharged. In this regard, the head office saw the need to reduce staff, minimize expenditure and maximize sales. The Covid-19 pandemic had had a huge impact on the worldwide economy at the time, and it was in a state of recession. Based on the actions that unfolded, Dr. O’ Brian had never been with my team before and thus made his assumptions that the team was overstaffed and never imagined the contribution of each one of us towards our success. He used his power to influence his thoughts and believed that we could still make it with a few members.
As a result, I had to handle the situation most appropriately. Initially, I lost hope in my field primarily since I had no power to control it since the pandemic had affected each economic sector. After a while, I reimagined the situation and pinpointed how the situation would affect the sales and marketing of the company. Therefore, I began to analyze Dr. O’ Brian’s situation, motivations, demands, and outsourcing. His actions define a ‘signaling theory’ in human resource management (HRM). He was the line manager to signal messages to employees who were the receivers of the message.
Kurt and Mark’s positional powers: we had common interests in maintaining the revenues. Therefore, we had a chat concerning the situation, and I expressed my concerns about the team and its effect on the company. Although he could not compromise Dr. O’Brian’s demands, he showed concerns about the issue and was aggressive to find how the situation could be re-adjusted. At this point, I thought of coming up with a rational idea to research how best the company can work under the situation. Once I was through with the research, I had to present it to Kurt and Mark since teamwork is often a source of the best ideas and unbiased solutions. We then came to analyze the situation agreed to be adaptive and responsive, which will eventually bring much to the organization to achieve our goals and objectives. In this regard, we were still trying to develop ways to reduce expenditure at the same time, keeping the resourceful team together.
Therefore, I perfected the research I had drafted and during the annual meetings with the head office management led by Dr. O’Brian, I was given an opportunity. I began by stating the current situation of the pandemic, more specifically, how it had affected major economies globally. In addition, how likely it was going to affect the GM. In the same regard, I mention how Dr. O’Brian’s move to reduce the expenditure was the best strategy to show how much I am concerned with the GM objectives. I then gave my findings on how we could still work with the team at a reduced cost. I, therefore, suggested having my team, which would work from home and avoid commuter and house allowances. As a result, GM’s expenses could be reduced while its performance improved. I demonstrated a state where the company’s expenditure has reduced by 10%, but the revenue increased by 60%. Compared to a situation where the expenditure reduces by 30% and say 10% of the revenues increased.
In addition, I explained how resourceful my team was in terms of how collaboration and teamwork are significant factors in solving and improving ideas. In addition, the team had a great sense of working in a world that does not yet exist, to gather for uncertainties that might arise. It was always best to work with such an extensive team as every idea is analyzed and comes out while it is unbiased and is rational. They knew my record and expertise, so they agreed on my proposal. It was due to the influence of consistency in my performance that I was able to get my desired results. The figure below shows how information and messages are relayed in the GM sales department.
Scrutinizing the response that was demonstrated in the political dynamics, I experienced the following. At the beginning, I was for the status quo as the directive came from the head office, and it was valid due to the global recession it was being experienced at that very moment. Taking the opportunity in the management meeting, my seniors valued the right tasks I had done in my stay at the GM and the expertise I owned. At the same moment, I felt powerful since I was able to convince the management that the valued resources for the company lay in the hands of my team. What is the interpretation of my network assessment and personality score from this complex scenario?
The most shocking and interesting aspect of my network was the low representation since I was granted my position. Until I took my actions, I came to know how valuable my team was. In terms of influencing others, I rate it at 60 percent: I saw the need to keep my team as my job and responsibility. I am good at engaging in politics to win my desired goals, and I can say I scored way 37 in keeping my team together. In aggressiveness and curiosity, I scored 41, and I was able to do research and come up with accepted logical findings. It was my responsibility to have my team and I come up with the strategy with the support of Kurt and Mark. Through socializing, I was able to present my idea to Mark and Kurt. From the review of my network assessment practice, it is explicit that the knowledge I own from the network assessment is worthy. The density offered me power in that I worked with supportive colleagues and a good working environment. I, therefore, believe that the network density enabled me to move forward. However, the low representation somehow affected me a little bit.
Approaches I Could Have Employed
Although I succeeded in getting what I desired in my job, there are some things I could have done to influence more effectively. I should have performed tasks in my department such that each team would have its task. In so doing, the concerned team would have to be acknowledged with credit to the senior management whenever an objective is met. Therefore, it would have created a state whereby management knows the matter of each individual in the team. As well, I should have created a platform under IT resources that all concerned managers can log in; this would help in that they can track down and appraise our performance.
In the above case, it would be easier and unbiased since the analyzed information would be not be distorted. It could have been much better to research and find solutions in a state where an organization is under financial constraints and this could have been perfect if I had changed my leadership technique around me. I should have also established a connection with an external network. Hence, a good opportunity to collaborate with other experts in the field and improve my leadership skills (Milliman et al., 2018). I would have also furthered the field’s knowledge of performing for the company through more pieces of training, workshops, seminars, and education. It would have also been essential to work with other companies and explore any existing creativity regarding the field.
The company would not have any choice but to keep the invention in an individual. Maximizing my alternatives would have been what I should have done through working smart to solve any irreplaceable obstacle in all the operations to get valued by the company. Finally, it would have been important to establish more external network interrelation through holding regular meetings with managers from various organization to build cohesion. Power and influence profoundly impacted my evaluation of the situation and forthcoming prescription in my field.
Ethical Use of Power
Based on the ethical use of power, I would say Dr. O’Brian ethically used his power when he gave out the directive regarding reducing GM expenditure. His appointment was to oversee the company’s operation and act most appropriately. I would also say that company’s management worked ethically, specifically by awarding employees who posted positive results and promoting them to bigger responsibilities. I am among employees who were promoted to a bigger role by showing positive results. For Kurt, he always did his work with ethical standards right from how he worked with junior employees like me. He showed and gave up his support whenever a solution was essential. Without his support in my desired situation, I would not have succeeded.
I worked ethically and ensured that I obeyed the company’s law in my responsibility. When the situation unfolded, I followed the right path towards resolving the issue and I kept my professional activities within the Law, like conflict resolution. I exercise all my responsibilities ethically, even when handling IT works. Without my managers’ consent, I would not access GM Internet infrastructure using their logins. It is not ethical to invade someone’s privacy unknowingly. I worked, bearing in mind the golden rule, and when I was in doubt, I would use the rule as my excellent guide to differentiate between right and wrong.
I would do what I would like to be done to me and I would serve individuals the way I would like to be served as well. I had formulated how GM website worked, such that running a search of the company’s name would pop with the word ‘corporate ethics’ and would then show up with the company’s ethics, along with ethics the firm is strongly opposing. I also had a strong sense of effective communication in the workplace, and it was important to improve the quality of work undertaken in the workplace. Of course, in addition to the ethical norms that guided my profession, I had to consider a more stringent set of rules: my code of ethics. The notion that would tell me right and wrong developed over my lifetime (Otaye-Ebede et al., 2020). It was a bedrock of a set of guidelines and principles that guided my behavior at work throughout my life.
For the company, it undertook all its operations ethically; the company provided each employee with published and detailed ethical guidelines. The company had prepared an ethical slogan, ‘Honor our commitment to high integrity in everything you do,’ It was helpful as it would steer all colleagues in the preferred direction (Otaye-Ebede et al., 2020). The slogan helped offer guidance on conflicts of interest, confidentiality, financial integrity, and substance misuse.
Lessons Learned and Conclusion
After my experience at GM motors, I will always work with unique techniques to re-adjust my leadership styles and control my powers. The techniques that I will establish will primarily look at a situation of power imbalance so that I can act rationally and ultimately improve other personnel. To retain my reputable experience, I will always uphold ethical standards. In the next steps, I will ensure that I extend my external networks, increase my expertise through education, and hold discussions with experts from different organizations. In addition, I will establish strong collaborations externally to develop a more attractive and conducive working environment that shall be sustainable for solving uncertainties.
References
Milliman, J., Gatling, A., & Kim, J. S. (2018). The effect of workplace spirituality on hospitality employee engagement, intention to stay, and service delivery. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 35, 56-65.
Otaye-Ebede, L., Shaffakat, S., & Foster, S. (2020). A multilevel model examining the relationships between workplace spirituality, ethical climate and outcomes: A social cognitive theory perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 166(3), 611-626.
IEA. (n.d.) Estimated plug-in electric light vehicles sales between 2015 and 2020 [Infographic]