Leadership and

power
Power and Leadership
• The term power can be positive and negative. It depends upon the
perspective of the person. But research has shown that power often
times is a dirty word. We often think of a powerful person as
unethical and immoral.
• People often relate power to leaders. Every leader has this vision of
achieving a particular dream and they use power to act on it. There
are many examples such as, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates
or Jeff Bezos, who were able to transform their vision into reality.
They could do this because they used necessary power. Great leaders
use personal power to make their dreams come to life.
• But what is power? It is a natural process in an organization. It is the
sheer capacity of influencing others. Influence changes the person,
their values, attitude, association, or behavior. It is impossible to have
power without influence. Both the words go hand in hand.
But simply having power doesn’t mean that one is a good leader. One
can gain have power by various referent tactics, among them is building
strong relationships. The famous historical personality Dr. Martin
Luther King Junior often used to make speeches that promoted
Christian teachings and nonviolence. The relationship between him and
his followers became so strong that even today he is considered to be a
great example of a powerful leader.
Sources of Power
• Coercive power.
• Reward power.
• Legitimacy Power.
• Expert power.
• Referent Power.
Coercive power
• Dr. Martin Luther King wouldn’t have had been famous if he had to
use this method to gain power. This is the person’s ability to gain
influence over others by creating a threat or punishing them.
Punishments may include undesirable assignments, demotion,
reprimands, suspension, withholding key information, dismissal etc.
it often creates negative side effects and thus, it should be used with
caution.
• Its ability to use varies from one organization to other. Some directly
include it in their policies while other doesn’t. But it’s not mandatory
for one to be in a high position for using this method. Even an
employee can do so by showing the fear of rejection or the use of
sarcasm. In many organizations, team members use coercive power
to control the employees
Reward power
• By using Reward power, one people with things they desire and thus
keep them under control. It can either be financial, bonus,
promotions, favorable assignment, praise, new equipment,
recognition; more responsibility etc. manager uses it to control
employ’s behavior as well as to influence them so that they value the
work.
• The organization can get better performance. But to make reward
power more effective the managers should be clear about the
connection between reward and behavior. If the employee gets the
reward that he doesn’t like, the influence will not work at all. For this
reason, the managers should take periodic feedbacks from employers.
Legitimacy Power
• People use legitimacy power to influence others by the
position that they hold within an organization. The
organization has given them the right to influence others.
They have this right to get the employees do the work
under their authority. When a manager asks the employee
to do extra work, then the legitimacy power is working.
• That means subordinates play a major role in the practice
of legitimacy power. However, it may be overstepping the
boundaries to misuse the power in selfish ways. The
Legitimacy authority should make discretionary decisions
for influencing others.
Expert power
• Expert power is used to influence others by the of one’s abilities and
skills. Physicians excel in power because of their knowledge and
skills. A Doctor is an expert in treating others and hence people
follow their advice. There are many scientists, economists, computer
specialists who are specialists in their field and thus have sufficient
power for influencing others. These experts have power even if they
are low in rank in an organization.
• Experts are acknowledged on the basis of how well they have gained
the information regarding their field. Followers must think of these
experts as trustworthy, honest, credible or relevant. But these
specialists don’t have power over other field and functional areas.
Referent Power
• The person using referent power can influence others just because
they admire and respect the power holder. Suppose if your boss is a
friend, and if they give you a project you don’t like, you will still do
it because of friendship. This means your boss has a power over you.
• Referent power often develops out of the desire to be like that person
too. This explains why celebrities have power over their followers,
everyone wants to be like them and people admire them too.
Similarly, if the marketing manager or the owner of a business is an
admirable or likable person, people can easily follow that person.
These leaders can ignite the entire organization.
Relationship between influence and
power
Many times people are able to influence others just because of the
formal power they hold. Take president of a country for example. He
can sign bills, declare war, etc. but when the president’s term expires,
the authority is given to someone else. A true leader uses referent and
legitimacy power to influence others. There are many examples of
presidents, Truman, Johnson, Kennedy, Regan, Clinton, Carter, who
used the influence of their power to rule their countries. Some used it
for the benefit of the people and some for their selfish motives as well.
• This figure elaborates the relationship between influence,
power and leadership. It tells us that leadership is an influential
process and its vital function is to derive better outcomes by
making the employees work. As the figure depicts, the sources
are divided into two main categories: organizational and
personal. Organizational power contains Legitimate, coercive
and reward whereas the personal power has expert and referent
powers.
• Legitimate power is mandatory for the growth of an organization, but
long-term dependence may affect the proper functioning of the firm.
It can create resistance, dissatisfaction, and frustration among
employees. Negative effects can be seen of both legitimate as well as
expert power is not used simultaneously.
• Even prolonged use of rewards may get you the employee
dissatisfaction. The employees can get dependent on those rewards to
function properly.
• Coercive power is a better option for the temporal benefit, but
prolonged use may be the source of ultimate dissatisfaction. It can
lead the employees to alienation, fear, and revenge. This will be the
reason for having poor performance and alienation.
• Expert power might be better than mentioned before. The
subordinates will result in internalized motivation as well as
attitudinal conformity after the leader uses power.
• Referent power is also one among good ones since it can bring
compliance, commitment, loyalty and trust from the subordinates.
Both the expert and referent does not require close operations for the
employees to work efficiently.
• One person can contain all the five elements. But of the two
broad sub categories, a personal source is more recommended
one. The combination of all 3 powers in the organizational can
leave the negative impact on the employees.
• The sources of power, however, are interrelated to each other.
That means if one of them becomes less, the functionality of
the employees may suffer. Even though a manager can have
high legitimate power, it is mandatory to keep it all balanced.
The legitimate can act as the source of other types of power as
well. For example, the manager may have the authority of
using reward or coercive power on the subordinates.
• The subordinate will always respond to the behavior the
leaders’ shows. If the leader uses three sources properly and
honestly, the followers will support them.
Effects on Influence and Power
Power is many times compared with love, the more we give, the more
we get. That means if the employee is given their own sense of power
and influence, they will yield more results. According to Diane Tracy, if
you give power to others, they will make sure your work is done. And
thus employee job performance is one of the most crucial tasks in an
organization. Their performance depends upon the extent to which they
complete the duties that are required to occupy a given position.
Dependency:

A successful leader understands that motivating employees is of

great importance in achieving organizational goals. The
employee is dependent on the leaders for motivating factor. If the
effective leadership is removed, the organization starts to suffer.
The effectiveness of the subordinates largely depends on the
effectiveness of the quality of leadership that people show.
Effective leadership facilitates the employee’s desires and that
can lead to proper growth of a firm.
Trust:

It is a psychological state of people when they accept vulnerability of

positively expected intentions or behavior of another person. It is the
main factor in a firm since the subordinates need to trust the supervisor
for accepting orders. For example, if a manager expects the employee
to do something, the employee should trust the superior with it and
would do it. The superior knows about the company better than the
employee does. Lack of trust establishes reduced productivity, wastage
of employee time, fear, delegation of duties and etc. therefore, it is
important for the employee to trust the manager of the firm.
Emotions:

Emotions have a strong function in the firm that enables one how
they should respond to a certain situation. Researchers have tried
their best to categorized emotions so that everyone will get its
benefit. When there is strong positive emotional flow between
both the parties, the organization thrives. On the other hand,
when the leadership changes to loathing the effects destroys
everything.
Job satisfaction:

There were many researches that had been made to get inside the word
‘job satisfaction’. One of them is the experiment on nurses. The
researchers found that when the nurses were employed at magnet
hospitals, their level job satisfaction increased. While in the non-magnet
hospitals, it decreased. Nurses got better support by magnet leaders and
a professional climate that enabled them to feel satisfied. This is the
reason why job satisfaction is mandatory. If the nurse wasn’t satisfied
enough, the result would’ve had been good.
Conclusion
Various sources of power should not be thought of separate ones.
A good leader strives to provide job satisfaction as well as
motivation to the subordinates so that they may yield good
productivity and helps the business to grow in a rapid pace.
Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political)

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-e-glaser/power-and-
influence_b_3411673.html
http://www.hbs.edu/coursecatalog/2056.html

http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/10432.pdf

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7965/8afc91bc9b8a8966f3827e3
72e3656c7bfce.pdf