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Enjoying Your Work Richard Brislin |
Position of power
brings responsibility
for others’ welfarePeople's motives move them toward desired goals. Given their motives, people want to move toward goals to increase pleasure and satisfaction. People with an affiliation motive want to be with others. They looked forward to social engagements and are unhappy when they find themselves alone too often. People with an achievement motive want to complete tasks within their areas of expertise. Physicians want to perform successful operations; architects want to create award-winning designs; and writers want to have their books published. People with a nurture motive want to help and to assist others. They often pursue careers in fields such as social work and public school teaching.
People with a power motive want to influence the behavior of others. If they make a decision, they want to see that others accept it and change their behavior so that the decision is put into practice. Power is not inherently an evil motive. Society needs people who can successfully wield power so that the public good is served. Policemen need to have their orders obeyed when they tell an unruly and aggressive group of teenagers to "break it up." If a restaurant has a reputation for serving unpalatable food by uncaring waiters, executives need their managers to follow though on directives to improve customer service. If investment companies are cheating their clients, there must be powerful people who can intervene so that investor confidence is restored.
Power can certainly be misused. Lord Acton was correct when he warned that power can corrupt and that absolute power can corrupt absolutely. Society needs various checks and balances so that no one person or collection of people can run rampant with power. For many people, the application of power creates a surge of pleasure in their brains, and so they seek out multiple opportunities to use power. These surges can become addictive, just as the pleasures brought on by drug or alcohol use can become addictive. Recognizing the dangers of power, successful executives often identify future leaders when they are in their 20s and 30s. Then, the executives assign these young people to positions with limited power. If they perform well, they are given more and more responsibility and authority in their subsequent promotions. In this way, the future leaders are "brought up slowly" to assist them in handling the temptations that accompany increasing amounts of power.
Abuses of power are not confined to headline-making events such as the Enron and WorldCom scandals. They can occur in everyday decision making. People have complained to me recently about hiring decisions. Executives chose managers without consulting with the people who would be working on a day-to-day basis with the new hire. The workers were justifiably upset. The executives may have experienced a pleasurable surge when making their decisions, but they will be hurt in the long run if they do not have the backing of employees.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
The purpose of this column is to increase understanding of human behavior as it has an impact on the workplace. Given the amount of time people spend at work, job satisfaction should ideally be high and it should contribute to general life happiness. Enjoyment can increase as people learn more about workplace psychology, communication, and group influences.
Richard Brislin is a professor in the College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii. He can be reached through the College Relations Office: cro@cba.hawaii.edu
