Let’s turn our attention to how employees obtain more legitimate power, demonstrate their expertise and get their peers, subordinates and superiors to like them
Employees build an image of success by projecting their competence and organisational commitment. They polish their images by drawing attention to their successes, being enthusiastic about the firm, valuing the firm’s status symbols and volunteering for important assignments despite their short-term personal costs. These are all good organisational citizenship behaviours.

1. Make it your long-term goal to become a recognised knowledge worker. Become a ‘boundary spanner’ between departments, and learn to ‘speak the language’ used in interrelated units of the firm.You see, the most significant problems faced by your department usually involve other departments. By being ‘multilingual’, you become a more versatile problem solver. If you have the interest and you find it challenging, you can acquire specialised expertise in marketing, strategic alliances, virtual organisations, crisis management (terrorism threats, spectacular product failures, for instance) and international operations.

2. Create obligation in others by doing them favours. [/b]Such individuals may be in a position to help the employee later. Use this approach carefully and sparingly! This approach is no substitute for effective performance on the job, because without high performance such behaviour appears to be nothing more than currying favour with the boss.

You can further your career progress in the firm by 3. [b]nurturing and maintaining a network of respected colleagues. Sustaining reliable work relationships and friendships and not forgetting those who have helped you over the years is a sign of loyalty and respect. There is always more room in firms for the civilising benefits of expressions of gratitude and generosity. These characteristics are valued by your co-workers, and they appreciate being remembered.

4. By giving excellent performance you meet or exceed the firm’s performance expectations. If you look outside the formal appraisal system, you can easily identify areas where you can stand out by working hard. This may include volunteering for difficult organisational assignments and defending the firm’s reputation (both reflect organisational citizenship). If you become known as an employee who tackles difficult problems, your expertise power can only grow inside the firm.

5. Moving into a position that controls access to information can greatly increase your indispensability: you become impossible to replace! This kind of ‘job security’ often flows to the individual who sees an opportunity to carve out or create his own job. You control information that is crucial to others’ job success, and so they turn to you for timely information or advice. If you are offered an interesting project, it might be wise to take it on.

6.
Identify with powerful people in the firm: find a mentor. Find a boss in a powerful position, work for him and give your career a positive boost. This may advance your career because you benefit from your boss’s greater experience and insights about the firm and its practices. Along the way you avoid a few mistakes and your career progress accelerates. Most mentor–protégé relationships slowly deteriorate over time as the protégé gains experience and knowledge: rising self-sufficiency slowly erodes the value of the relationship (as it should).

In today’s highly competitive world it may be sensible to 7. move into a position that gives you control over supplies and budgets. [/b]Jobs in accounting and distribution management have the potential to save firms money because they rein in costs and reduce cycle time (just-in-time inventory management systems).

8.[b]If your firm values risk taking, tackle problems in your department by becoming an ‘intrapreneur’. Bring your ideas for process improvements forward in team meetings. Stay current in the technical literatures that apply to your job or profession, and apply what you are learning to nagging problems in your work unit.

Managing upward is our final strategy for acquiring power. One of the greatest determinants of career success is convincing your boss to invest in the ideas you advance. It is a ‘soft’ skill that is complimented by gratitude and graciousness. Because upward management is a soft skill, it can easily be mistaken for something else: self-promotion, glossing over errors and ingratiation. So tread carefully, but remember: the people above you are the only ones who can help you. Be willing to tell your boss about your accomplishments and, if necessary, give him ownership for them. Show your boss how your suggestions align with his. He will go along with this approach because he probably thinks his ideas are better than yours anyway. Finally, maintain your relationship with your boss: ask for advice and carefully demand the right amount of ‘face time’.

9. By manipulating rules or sticking close to company policies, you can gain an advantage that may boost your personal power in the firm. Some jobs offer ample opportunities to gain power through rule manipulation. For instance, staff lawyers and internal auditors become powerful because they have the job of writing, revising and controlling procedures, policies and standards.
10.
Be a job reorganiser! See if you can identify some unmet objectives or create some new, value-adding tasks and complete them. Be a self-starter. If this is an aspect of your nature, then practise job enlargement by adding complementary tasks that expand your skill set.

Controlling personnel decisions does not simply mean hiring and firing. Your power grows if you are in a position to recommend who needs further training, who should be transferred, who should be promoted and who handles the firm’s recruiting. Knowledge obsolescence is a threat to most employees, and this raises the power of experts in training, recruiting and employee development (those who can rebuild employees’ confidence in line of sight).

11. Gaining power to manoeuvre financial resources raises your clout throughout the firm. Control over financial resources is not always concentrated just at the top of the firm. For example, project, product or brand managers often obtain authority for the control of financial resources relative to their projects or products. The same logic would apply to important cross-functional teams and SDTs that create product innovations through customer research and focus groups. Pushing your career towards these jobs will increase your access to controlling financial resources.
Culled: Managersjoint..com