POWER AND LEADERSHIP

Dr. Dennis E. Maligaya

[email protected]
Power
• Power is the ability to influence others.
• One of the most influential theories of power
comes from the work of French and Raven,
who attempted to determine the sources of
power leaders use to influence others.
Power
• Generally, the personal sources of power are
more strongly related to employees’ job
satisfaction, organizational commitment, and
job performance than are the organizational
power sources.
• One source of organizational power—coercive
power—is negatively related to work
outcomes.
Power
• However, the various sources of power should
not be thought of as completely separate from
each other.
• Sometimes leaders use the sources of power
together in varying combinations depending on
the situation.
• A new concept of power, referred to as
“empowerment,” has become a major strategy
for improving work outcomes
• French and Raven identified five sources of
power that can be grouped into two
categories: organizational power (legitimate,
reward, coercive) and personal power (expert
and referent).
 Sources of Power in Organizations
• Legitimate Power
– Legitimate power is a person’s ability to influence others’ behavior because of the
position that person holds within the organization.
– Legitimate or position power, as it is sometimes called, is derived from a position of
authority inside the organization, often referred to as “formal authority.”
– That is, the organization has given to an individual occupying a particular position
the right to influence—direct—certain other individuals.
– Those with legitimate power have the understood right to ask others to do things
that are considered within the scope of their authority.
– When a manager asks an employee to work late to complete a project or to work
on one task instead of another, he or she is exercising legitimate power.
– Managers can enhance their position power by formulating policies and
procedures.
– For example, a manager might establish a requirement that all new hires must be
approved by said manager, thus exercising authority over hiring (DuBrin, 2009)
Reward Power
• Reward power is a person’s ability to influence others’ behavior by providing
them with things they want to receive.
• These rewards can be either financial, such as pay raises or bonuses or
nonfinancial, including promotions, favorable work assignments, more
responsibility, new equipment, praise, and recognition.
• A manager can use reward power to influence and control employees’
behavior, as long as employees value the rewards.
• For example, if managers offer employees what they think are rewards (a
promotion with more responsibility), but the employees do not value them
(i.e., they are insecure or have family obligations that are more important to
them than a promotion), then managers really do not have reward power.
• Reward power can lead to better performance, as long as the employee sees
a clear link between performance and rewards.
Coercive Power
• Coercive power is a person’s ability to influence others’
behavior by punishing them or by creating a perceived
threat to do so.
• For example, employees may comply with a manager’s
directive because of fear or threat of punishment.
• Typical organizational punishments include reprimands,
undesirable work assignments, withholding key
information, demotion, suspension, or dismissal.
• Coercive power has negative side effects and should be
used with caution, because it tends to result in negative
feelings toward those who use it
Expert Power
• Expert power is a person’s ability to influence others’ behavior because of
recognized knowledge, skills, or abilities.
• Physicians are acknowledged to have expertise, special skills, or knowledge and
hence expert power.
• Most people follow their doctor’s advice.
• Computer specialists, tax accountants, and economists have power because of
their expertise.
• Experts have power even when they rank low in the organization’s hierarchy.
• As organizations become increasingly more technologically complex and
specialized, expert power of organization members at all levels in the hierarchy
becomes more important(Luthans, 2011).
• Some firms deliberately include lower-level staff members with expert power in
top-level decision making (Nebus, 2006).
• Knowledge is power in today’s high-tech workplaces (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010).
Referent Power
• Referent power is a person’s ability to influence others’ behavior
because they like, admire, and respect the individual.
• For example, suppose you are friends with your boss.
• One day, she asks you to take on a special project that you do not like.
• To anyone else, you would likely decline the request, but because of
your special relationship with this individual, you may do it as a favor.
• In this instance, your boss has power over you because of your
positive relationship.
• Referent power develops out of admiration of another and a desire to
be like that person.
• This helps to explain why celebrities are paid millions of dollars in
endorsements.
 Power, Influence, and Leadership
• A great deal of power people have in organizations comes
from the specific jobs or titles they hold (Greenberg, 2011).
• In other words, they are able to influence others because
of the formal power associated with their positions.
• For example, there are certain powers that the president of
the United States has because of the office (e.g., signing
bills into law, making treaties, declaring war, etc.).
• These remain vested in the position and are available to
anyone who holds it. When the president’s term expires,
they transfer to the new office-holder.
• A true leader is able to influence others and modify behavior via legitimate
and referent power.
• President Carter had a noble vision about the United States, as well as the
world, but he could not coalesce groups or people to achieve his goals; the
whole country suffered.
• Presidents Truman and Johnson used their position (or office or power)
effectively and were much better able to manipulate groups and people to
achieve their ends.
• Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton relied on personal persuasion and
were able to sway the nation as a whole, as well as Congress, business, and
labor, by charisma and communication.
• President Roosevelt effectively used both position and personality. Presidents
Bush 41 and 43 and Obama’s leadership tends to coincide with the Truman-
Johnson model.
• Figure 1 summarizes the relationship between power, influence, and
leadership.
• The key to this framework is that leadership as an influence process is a
function of the elements of the leader’s sources of power and the
degree of acceptance with the interests and needs of the subordinates.
• In the figure, sources of power are divided into personal and
organizational.
• Legitimate, reward, and coercive powers are organizational and are part
of the leader’s job.
• Policies and procedures prescribe them.
• Expert and referent powers are personal and emanate from a leader’s
personality.
 Research on Sources of Power
• One review of several studies that examined the
sources of power concluded the following(Pfeffer,
1993):
– 1.Legitimate power can be depended on initially, but
continued reliance on it may create dissatisfaction,
resistance, and frustration among employees; if
legitimate power does not coincide with expert
power, there may be negative effects on productivity;
and dependence on legitimate power may lead to
only minimum compliance while increasing resistance
• 2.Reward power can directly influence the
frequency of employee-performance
behaviors in the short run.
• Prolonged use of reward power can lead to a
dependent relationship in which subordinates
feel manipulated and become dissatisfied.
• 3.Although coercive power may lead to
temporary compliance by subordinates, it
produces the undesirable side effects of
frustration, fear, revenge, and alienation. This
in turn may lead to poor performance,
dissatisfaction, and turnover
• Expert power is closely related to a climate of
trust.
• A leader’s influence can be internalized by
subordinates; that is, when a leader uses expert
power, attitudinal conformity and internalized
motivation on the part of subordinates will result.
• This in turn requires less surveillance of
employees by the leader than does reward or
coercive power.
• 5.Referent power can lead to enthusiastic and
unquestioning trust, compliance, loyalty, and
commitment from subordinates. Like expert
power, considerably less surveillance of
employees is required.
 Empowerment of Organization Members
• Diane Tracy follows up her view of empowerment with practical
suggestions on how to achieve a redistribution of power. She
recommends ten steps to empowerment (Tracy, 1991):
– 1.Tell people what their responsibilities are.
– 2.Give them authority equal to the responsibility assigned them.
– 3.Set standards of excellence.
– 4.Provide them with the needed training.
– 5.Give them knowledge and information.
– 6.Provide them with feedback on their performance.
– 7.Recognize them for their achievements.
– 8.Trust them.
– 9.Give them permission to fail.
– 10.Treat them with dignity and respect.
 Conclusion
• Power is the ability to influence others.
• One of the most influential theories of power comes from the work of French and Raven,
who attempted to determine the sources of power leaders use to influence others.
• French and Raven identified five sources of power that can be grouped into two categories:
organizational power (legitimate, reward, coercive) and personal power (expert and referent).
• Generally, the personal sources of power are more strongly related to employees’ job
satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance than are the organizational
power sources.
• One source of organizational power—coercive power—is negatively related to work
outcomes.
• However, the various sources of power should not be thought of as completely separate from
each other.
• Sometimes leaders use them together in varying combinations depending on the situation.
• A new concept of power, referred to as “empowerment,” has become a major strategy for
improving work outcomes.