Leadership

Pfeffer: Freedom is the Cost of Power

By Jessica Stillman

Updated on: August 29, 2008 / 2:27 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

The Find: Management guru Jeff Pfeffer knows how you can boost your power within an organization, but he also knows super-charging your influence at work comes at a cost: freedom.
The Source: Stanford Professor Bob Sutton quoting Pfeffer, author of Managing with Power, on his blog Work Matters.

The Takeaway: Jeff Pfeffer has a new book due out soon on how to build up your influence at work, but when he gave it to his friend Bob Sutton to read, Sutton noticed something strange. Many of the strategies, such as spending as much time with powerful people and potential enemies as possible, that Pfeffer recommends, he doesn't practice himself. Sutton asked him why. The answer is thought-provoking:

You can have influence or you can have freedom, but you can't have both. I prefer freedom, my book is for people who prefer to have a lot of influence in an organization.

Sutton elaborates that gaining power, according to research by Pfeffer and others, is mostly a matter of building relationships with people you don't necessarily like, i.e. taking on many, many obligations, social and otherwise. Generally, lunching with enemies and bigwigs is not considered the most fun to have in the afternoon, but according to the evidence it's what it takes to claw one's way to the top, and it's non-optional. The truly ambitious are not free to choose a solo sandwich in the park.

Of course, one could argue that Pfeffer (ranked 11th this year on the WSJ's list of the top 20 business gurus) is himself not exactly a man without influence, but he obviously doesn't view himself as "powerful." Which begs the question: what kind of power is Pfeffer talking about exactly, and is it something you really want?

The Question: Is freedom/power a false dichotomy? Can you have both?

(Image of one sort of powerful man by independentman, CC 2.0)