Generally speaking, power has a bad reputation. Social scientists define power, achievement, and affiliation as the three fundamental orientations in human social relationships. When someone wants to be successful as an artist or an expert, we say he wants to be accomplished. When someone is good at making friends, we say he is popular. But what do we think when someone wants to be in charge of things? We tend to think power-hungry. We also feel these people are not as "good" as friendly people or experts and skilled craftsmen or artists. However, the notion of power today is shifting, claims the management-issues.com website.
Technological revolution changes how power is exercised
Most of our experiences with power are from inside hierarchical organizations. There power is equated with control. Power itself is neither good nor bad. Whether we experience it as positive or negative depends on the quality of our relationships. When power is ascribed by position, it means that the power holder has power over people. Technologies however have radically reshape how power is exercised – especially in large organizations. Businesses today understand that it is more important and more productive to have power with people rather than over people. Therefore companies today build network structures to aggregate and take advantage of the collective intelligence.
Mass collaboration enterprises are more successful at managing change in order to remain competitive. Effective leadership is about being connected, no longer about being in charge. Now managers should not be directing the work of others, they should integrate everyone's best. Today what matters is co-creation and shared understanding, as well as developing relationships across all the people in the network of an organization.
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