The path to power and how to use it. (2013)

“Broughton reviews the different approaches to power taken by some of today’s leading CEOs. Call it what you like, raw power, its acquisition and use, still count in business.

Philip Delves Broughton
Financial Times, 15 July 2013

Power has bad connotations in management these days. It suggests headbangers and table-slammers, cigar-chomping men in smoke-filled rooms.

So, many companies prefer the language of collaboration and teamwork or, if they must, the more demure “influence”. Executives are encouraged to use correct forms of persuasion rather than unseemly displays of muscle.

Yet visit any organisation and the chances are everyone from the doorman to the chairman of the board will have a good idea of who’s powerful and who’s not.

Management writer Phillip Delves Broughton reviews the different approaches to power taken by some of today’s leading CEOs, and also what’s being written and taught in the business schools.

He concludes that “Call it what you like, raw power, its acquisition and use, still count in business.”

Access the full article here: The path to power and how to use it

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