Power And Powerlessness Essay Example for Free

Power And Powerlessness screenWhen I hear the word organization agency many thoughts come to mind, but I liveliness power has many disparate forms. We could assume that power means more m unrivalledy, a bigger title, a boxwood office, a more generous budget, or a seat at the table. But that may not be true for every whizz. For some, power may mean having the ability to control virtuosos career destiny in keeping with personalised values and interests. Or power could mean having the prospect to be creative as a project lead without too much interference from others. Or power could mean making decisions with trust and autonomy, such that no one can easily countermand your decisions. To me, power is control and the capacity to bring about change. For example, the United States government, they control everything and also other countries. Our government has the power to create and print money, regulate interstate and international trade, make treaties and conduct foreign policies, affirm war, provide an army and navy, establish post offices, and make laws necessary to carry out these powers.In summing up to their elusive powers, both the national government and state governments share the power of being able to see taxes, build roads, borrow money, establish courts, make and enforce laws, charter banks and corporations, spend money for oecumenic welfare, and pledge private property for public purposes. Power is also pick outd through possession or encyclopedism of the following resources authority, money, status, knowledge, professional degrees, goods, attends, votes, public support, information, ability to influence the media, and relationships with powerful people. Power can be derived from ones authority to make decisions in organization s or by virtue of ones gender, ethnicity, kindly class, or personal attributes, such as appearance and charisma. People often farm power by establishing alliances and coalitions with others to support or oppose various policies or decision-making options.Workers in social service organizations also acquire power because they often decide whether individual clients receive services, resources, or referrals. But how would it regain to not down power, a sensation of being out of control with no apparent beginning to help you to regain control, uneffectiveness. When the lack of capability to affect the realities of animateness that you cant control such as how others act towards you, if you will get a job you want, what the weather will be like, or if an accident will occur. Powerlessness can be simply defined as the absences of power resources. However, the bring forth of empowerment practice, Barbara Solomon (1976), defines powerlessness as a product of the interaction between individuals and the social structures that limit life opportunities for them Powerlessness is defined here as the inability to manage emotions, skills, knowledge, and/or material resources in a way that effective performance of valued social roles will lead to personal gratification.The power inadequateness so often seen among minority individuals and communities stems from a complex and dynamic interrelationship between the person and his relatively hostile social environment. When you feel powerless, you feel afraid to express your needs because you fear that what little you cod will be taken from you. You may have learned powerlessness if you were kept in powerless positions repeatedly and/or over long periods of time, possibly during childhood, by those who used external forces (money, physiological strength, licit status, and/or military force) to control you. You may have been abused as a child, a accomplice or spouse, an employee, a soldier, or you may have been the victim of racial or ethnic attacks. much(prenominal) prolonged abuse can cause you to become afraid to feel unconstipated your own needs, to strike to yourself that you need something, you become immobi lized and in certain critical ways you stop growing, you cease to thrive.When powerlessness is learned, it becomes self-perpetuating, so far if the external forces are no longer there. An abused child may grow up to feel permanently powerless as an adult, even though his or her parents no longer have physical or economic power over him or her. One may then enter into a situation that repeats childhood experiences such as living with or marrying an abusive partner, and therefore keeping oneself in externally imposed danger. Or one may keep oneself down through self-abuse, compulsive behaviors, and slump because the powerlessness has become internalized. The first step to overcoming learned powerlessness is to learn to feel authorize to your personal rights. You have the right to live a life free from physical, emotional, sexual, and financial mistreatment. You have the right to be toughened with respect, to earn a livable income, to be informed of matters that affect you, and to express yourself freely, without harming others.Most importantly, you have the right to ask for what you need, even though you may be turned down, and to fight for what you need and want, even if you are turned down. Most people who have learned powerlessness barely feel entitled to speak, let alone to speak freely. Often professional therapy is necessary to pass over the ingrained patterns. Never the less, to overcome learned powerlessness, you must gradually, but persistently lay claim to each and every human right, one after the other. The purpose of the empowerment approach is to help people overcome feelings powerlessness by acquiring power. Mondros and Wilson (1994) differentiate power from empowerment by arguing that this second concept is actually a mental state that allows one to pursue concrete activities aimed at becoming powerful. The literature on empowerment in organizations focuses on two distinct categories of organizations actors program beneficiaries and staff me mbers. Rapp, Shera, and Kisthardt (1993) define empowerment in individual clients as confidence, control, decision authority, influence, autonomy, and self-trust.According to Shera and Page (1995), empowerment of employees in organizations can be defined as, a motion of enhancing self-efficacy among organizational members through the identification of conditions that foster powerlessness and through their removal by both white-tie organizational practices and informal techniques that provide efficacy information. Empowerment in the social services can take place within the context of relationships between engageers and clients, within the organizations formal decision-making structure, and within the trace between the organization and institutions or groups in its external environment. It should be noted that empowerment in organizations involves the redistribution of resources such as decision-making authority or goods and services. Therefore, in addition to producing specific outcomes, empowerment is a political process. provide members may feel they will lose power and authority to make service decisions if clients are treated as equal partners in the decision-making process. Because one of the primary assumptions of empowerment in direct social work practice is to reduce feelings of powerlessness by increasing personal self-perceptions of ones own power, the regulate focuses on facilitating the acquisition of leadership skills and actual political power among agency clientele. Staff members also acquire power through participation in organizational decision-making and by advocating for improvements in organizational policies and services. The organization gains political power as constituents become empowered to advocate for changes in government policies and campaign for meaningful social change. In conclusion, power, powerlessness, and empowerment all have a different meaning and serve a different purpose but each one has a powerful meaning in its o wn way.