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In organizations, the most appropriate use of coercion is to deter behavior
that is very detrimental, such as illegal activities, theft, violation of safety
rules, reckless behavior that endangers others, and direct disobedience of

legitimate requests. Furthermore, a leader might prefer coercive power as
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the most effective and desirable strategy in a particular situation, but might
not use it out of concern that others would strongly disapprove.

Resource and Reward Power

You can motivate by fear. And you can motivate by reward. But both of
these methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self-motivation.
Homer Rice

People have resource power, another type of positional power, when they

have the responsibility to decide what resources are available to others in
the organization, such as budget expenditures, technology assets, or
staffing assignments. Even a person low in the organizational
management hierarchy can often have a great deal of resource control.
Thus a person in charge of the organization’s finances, who can influence
the sanction of other employees' expenditure budget, can exercise resource

power over them. It isn’t surprising that many of the political battles in
organizations are over control of its resources. Clearly, the manager or
managers in an organization need to get things done, which means they
need to mobilize resources. In order to mobilize resources, a manager
needs some amount of power.

Additionally, when someone is in the position to reward others, it gives that
individual power. People comply because doing so produces positive
benefits. These rewards are not just financial; they can be anything that
someone values. Frequently, sincere public recognition in the form of
praise, awards, and ceremonies focusing on the person’s contributions and
achievements are found to be very effective.

39 R. Dennis Green, “Leadership as a Function of Power,” Proposal Management, Fall 1999, p. 96.

David Kolzow 36