Reflection on the balance between my lecturer and me

Today I will be analysing the balance between my lecturer, Mr Peter Lee and myself. Mr Lee, as my lecturer may have Reward power and legitimate power under the positional power. Moreover, under the personal powers, he might have display expert power to me as his student.

Firstly, reward power. Reward power is derived from one’s capacity to give valued rewards (positive reinforcement) or remove sanction (negative reinforcement). For example, my lecturer has the power of giving us treats/ buying us food/ giving an easy reflection journal question as a valued reward if we do our presentation well and with quality or taking part in competitions.

Second is coercive power. Coercive power is derived from one’s capacity to administer punishment or remove benefits. As a lecturer, he has the power of coercive as he can punish or give penalties to students if the students have late submission of worksheet or unexcused absenteeism.

Thirdly, under the personal power, my lecturer can display, expert power. Expert power is derived from one’s recognised superior skills, knowledge or abilities in a certain area. He can display expert powers as he specialises in his area of teaching about observational behaviour to his students.

Now, with the powers that I have written above, I will be using 3 influence techniques according to the powers and influence you not to give me a “ F” grade today. The influence technique of that I will be using first will be exchange. If you give me a good grade for today, I will be able to feel motivated and I would promise to keep up with the good grades that I have gotten and would work harder next week, to maintain my grades. If you were to give me a F, I would feel disheartened and demotivated which will in turn, resulting in me not willing to try as I would not see a point in working hard as I have already received a F. Exchange is the type of influence technique that is suitable with the power of reward. Exchange can take place when you are able to promise some benefits upon complying with request.

The second influence technique that I will be using is Pressure. If you give me a F grade for today, I will demand some explanations as I thought I have performed well during the class discussions, during the learning phase 3 presentation and I have given a quality quiz and RJ thus, I would feel appalled and offended. Moreover, if you continue giving me a F for my grades, I would feel demotivated and might even consider dropping out from the course. Pressure is the type of influence technique that is suitable for coercive and it is to seek compliance through warning, threat, repeated demands or intimidation.

The last technique that I will be using will be Rational Persuasion. I will not be able to understand if I were to be given a grade F as I have performed better than the last few weeks where I still got a grade B or A, thus if I were to be given F, it would not be logical as, I participated actively in the class / team discussions, presented my portion in the PowerPoint well, better than what I have performed in past few weeks. Rational persuasion is most suited with the power of expert. It is about using logical arguments and facts to persuade /influence.