Topic:

Student Name:

Course:

Institution

Date

Thesis statement

Power comes as a result of control over the assets and the crucial information. As a result of hard work, those in low position are able to climb the ladder and take full control.

Discussion

Power is the dominant theme in the film titled ‘Working Girl’ of 1988. Much of what is demonstrated in the movie is consistent with what Mancini has explained in his easy of politics of power. This easy will show the comparison of how power has been expressed in the easy and how it has been described from the movie.

Tess McGill is the main character in the movie a very ambitious secretary who want to soar to greater heights. She works for a lady by the name of Katherine who has taken control of the vital assets and information of the company.

Power has been defined as the ability to alter the realities of a situation in order to accomplish organizational objectives (Mancini 658). The employees at the low level feel intimidated by those above them to the extent that they think they can not do anything to change that. They have the perception that they were meant to remain in the low position and therefore do nothing to alter the situation. However, that definition is demonstrated in the movie when Tess McGill decides to take the unprecedented step of taking the full control of the company without caring the avenue that she will use to get there as she demonstrates from her quote, ‘You can bend the rules plenty once you get to the top, but not while you’re trying to get there. And if you’re someone like me, you can’t get there without bending the rules.’ She was so prepared to get to the top no matter what happened next.

Martha Limkin says that power is composed of three elements (Mancini 658). They include the control over tangible resources like money and staff, control over important information and lastly gaining support from the co-workers by establishing a favorable relationship. Katherine has been able to maintain her power in the company through having the control of assets and vital information as it has been demonstrated from the film when her secretary discovers the hidden data in her system which she later uses as a tool to climb to top position. This is the same strategy that is used by many high profile employees to maintain their status.

Mancini demonstrates that power is taken breaking the conventional belief that it is bestowed. He says that power is a dynamic variable (Mancini 658). However, he insists that power can only be taken through hard working and creativity. This is consistent with what Tess McGill does to get to the top position. She is said to be attending the evening management classes and reading everything that will provide her with all the information she needs to get there. She understands that the only way to succeed is accumulating more knowledge owing to the fact that ‘knowledge is power.’ It is through the extensive and intensive learning that she finds a business idea that transforms her status completely.

Finally, Mancini provides the four psychological elements that are important in gaining and maintaining power that have also been used in the film and worked marvelously. They include ambition, enthusiasm, vision and result oriented (Mancini 658) From the beginning of the movie, Tess McGill seems unsatisfied by her current position as a secretary. Her ambition and vision to gain the top position drives her to work hard in her academics so that she can succeed eventually. Therefore, all what is contained in the essay of politics and power by Mancini agrees with what has been demonstrated in the movie ‘Working Girl.’

Conclusion

Knowledge is power and those who have it can manipulate and maneuver their way to the top and still have the ability to maintain their position. Control of important data and resources are the vital weapons for having full possession of power.

Reference:

Suze Orman: HTMLCONTROL Forms.HTML:Hidden.1 Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny. Spiegel & Grau. 2010Suze Orman (Author)

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Patti F. Mancini: The politics of power: Getting to the top and staying there. Los Angeles, 1989.

Kevin Wade: The Working Girl. 1989.

Milton Friedman: Monopoly and the Social Responsibility of Business and Labor capitalism and Freedom (40th anniversary edition ed.). The University of Chicago Press. pp. 208. ISBN 0-226-26421-1, 2002