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The Sources of Moses' Power

In this module, we’ll begin by defining influence. You’ll weigh the pros and cons of proactivity and political ability, and find the right balance to get any job done within your organization. You’ll learn different models of power structures and dynamics, and discover the importance of flexibility, situational awareness, and agency. By the end of this module, you’ll be better able to analyze organizational structure, recognize processes within your organization that need improvement, and use your power of influence to optimize these processes.

Influence

Universidade da Pensilvânia

Curso 4 de 4 no Achieving Personal and Professional Success Programa de cursos integrados

What does it mean to be influential? How does one persuade others to pursue a unified goal? How does one leverage power? In this course, you’ll learn how to develop influence and to become more effective in achieving your organizational goals. Professor Cade Massey of the Wharton School has designed this course to help you understand the framework of power and influence and the dynamics of effective networks, and shows you how to develop your skills of persuasion and leverage. By the end of this course, you’ll know your own strengths and how to use them to get what you need, how to gain power and influence, and how to leverage relationships and alliances to achieve your goals in both business and in life.

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Ministrado por

Cade Massey
Practice Professor

Transcrição

So, if Robert Moses was the most influential person in New York City in the 20th century.

It is an extraordinary statement.

It might be worth understanding where his power came from.

So, let's talk a little bit about where we believe that power came from.

Earlier in this module we introduced French and

Raven's framework for the bases of social power.

So, let's just do a little checklist.

Where does Moses draw on any of these sources of social power? Well, reward power.

We know that he was able to reward politicians who went along with him,

landowners who went along with him,

contractors who went along with him.

He was famous for not profiting himself from his enterprises.

He only took a dollar in salary.

He had the good fortune of coming from a wealthy family

but he made sure others profited from his enterprises.

So that is one source. Coercive power.

One of the reasons LaGuardia was reluctant to oppose him.

He could have opposed him on other authorities,

other commissions, he could have punished him other places.

But Moses's tentacles went across

so many places that if LaGuardia oppose him in

one place he could hurt him in a second place.

And so this coercive power with LaGuardia, with the mayor of New York.

If he could do this to the mayor of New York,

you can imagine there's nobody that was immune to it.

He definitely had coercive power.

Dropping to the bottom he had legitimate power.

The offices he held gave him that.

People granted him deference by

title alone as we talked about in the French and Raven framework.

He had referent power and this is

an interesting one because you would think that a guy that

had this many other sources of power might not worry about his image,

might not worry about charisma,

but as we learned from Cairo in

his investigations to Moses and is sometimes lost in people's understanding of Moses now.

He was very diplomatic he curried favor

with the media and he worried about things that you would

be amazed that a guy like this would worry about him for example

the cardstock on invitations to an event that went out to media.

He worried about the cardstock.

He was very much worried about reverent power.

And then finally, expert power.

He was an expert in building these bridges and tunnels and infrastructure projects.

Municipalities from around the world

would send their people to New York to study with him.

He was recognized as an expert in building and construction,

engineering and running the the crews that needed to do that.

But that was only one source of his expert power,

what else was he an expert in?

From the story alone we know that he was an expert bill writer.

He was considered "the best bill rider in Albany."

He wasn't even a legislator and he was considered the best bill writer in Albany.

So, he had this other source of expert power.

And then finally, he developed...

He helped develop the whole notion of financing through authorities.

He was an expert in financing in a way

that basically jumped ahead of everybody else at the time.

So, he had these three sources of

expert power any one of which would have been enough to build a career on.

We would all hope to be as expert as he was in one

of these domains and one of our lifetimes and he had it in three.

So, you look across what is essentially a checklist for

us and you see that he drew on every source of power,

multiple times in some cases.

And that begins to be not surprising that he was able to hold power as long as he did.

And this is something that we know about power that

the more enduring power comes from those who draw from more sources.

Moses had as enduring power as we've seen and it should be

a surprise to us that he draws from all the sources that French and Raven suggest matter.

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