Barbara Acosta
University of Phoenix
BCOMM230
Julie Bonner
August 22, 2011
Forms of Power
I have worked in the dental field now for over three years and have experienced all forms of power both good and bad. However, through these forms of power I feel that I have improved and bettered myself and have developed my own form of expert power in this field.
Power refers to the capacity that someone has to influence the behavior of another person. The most important part of aspect of power is that it is a function of dependency. The greater someone is dependent on another person, the greater their power is over that person. There are five forms of power; three of them which are considered formal power and the remaining …show more content…
When I originally began working in the dental field I began as a receptionist with no experience. The dental field and all its players were very intimidating to me because I had no experience. My manager at the time had coercive power over me because she had the power to fire me if I did not do my job according to her expectations. Her form of training was to show me once and then expect me to pick it up. When I would make mistakes I would here her lecture me about how I should know how to do a certain task by now and how I have already been train to do it the right way. This form of power has its positive and negative results for me. The positive is that I learned to not make those mistakes and not skip any steps because I did not want to get lectured. The negative is that I developed fear rather than respect for my manager and I no longer wanted to work for her because I felt that a reward power was a more effective way of training …show more content…
People comply with the wishes of directives of another because doing so produces positive benefits. At my current company they use reward power in a form of bonuses. Our company has monthly goals and if we reach these goals we get a bonus at the end of the month. I focus on our collection goal. In order for me to reach our collection goal I work diligently throughout the month by calling patients to pay their bills, pay outstanding balances, send accounts to collections, run payment plans, bill insurances, post payments to accounts, and keep all accounts current. The outcome of my hard work is an additional $400 dollars at the end of the month for me. The upside of reward power for me is that I continue to work hard each and every single month due to the fact that I prefer to have that extra income.
Legitimate power represents the formal authority to control and use organizational resources. Legitimate power includes acceptance by members in an organization of the authority of a position. For example, I work for a corporation which means that I listen and comply with what my manager, regional manager, and owner of the company say or tell me to