Modern Management: concepts and skills, 14/e

Power and Control

To control successfully, managers must understand not only the control process but also how organization members relate to it. Up to this point, the chapter has emphasized the nonhuman variables of controlling. This section focuses on power, perhaps the most important human-related variable in the control process. The following sections present a definition of power, elaborate on the total power of managers, and list the steps managers can take to increase their power over other organization members.

A Definition of Power

Perhaps the two most-often-confused terms in management are power and authority. Authority was defined in Chapter 11 as the right to command or give orders. The extent to which an individual is able to influence ...