Power and politics, this is a chapter from an organisational behaviour textbook. An interesting concept, how power is gained, how influence is determined and how the political process within organisations affects power. Whilst power is very overt in many instances, certain positions possess high degrees of positional power that carry influence regardless of who holds the position. This is not the area that interests me, nor is how these people gain these positions as they are rarely awarded during a competitive process.

From my observations, these positions are offered to friends, hangers-on or done through favours and this includes sexual favours. Cronyism is a recurring theme that is mostly given to yes men and that doesn’t add any value to an organisation whatsoever. Soft power is exhibited through shoring up support, this is generally non-performers who owe their positions to a person holding and abusing positional power. Performing favours, calling in favours and bypassing merit selection principles is the domain of weak leaders exerting power in a government job.