Leadership and power
Leadership is defined as the ability to influence the people to achieve their goals and targets and set their goals as well whereas, the power is defined as, the capacity which the one can have to achieve those goals. The power and leadership both are studied simultaneously as their clean purpose is to influence. Influence means persuading the people to follow their suggestions, ideas, advice, and other related things (Vecchio, 2007).
Faces of power
There are two faces of power. These faces are explained below
Personal power
The concept of personal power is revolved around one person. Here the people who have the power consider him as a personal dominant. The situation here is ‘I WIN’ and ‘YOU LOSE’ (Vecchio, 2007).
Socialized power
Socialized power involves the involvement of the people in the form of the groups. They are clearly focused on the group goals and the consent of the other people. The situation is ‘WIN-WIN’ (Vecchio, 2007).
Power is used by the people to influence the person’s attitude, behavior, and thoughts. Power can be used in two ways either positively or negatively. When it is used in a negative way, then it may prove fatal and causes severe consequences. The power used in a positive manner can help in overcoming the conflicts and resolve the problems (Vecchio, 2007).
Characteristics of a powerful leader
A powerful leader may have the following attributes (Kotter, 2010).
He should be an honest person.
He must have an ability to be a representative.
He should do good at communication.
He must contain a good sense of humor.
His confidence must be loud.
He must have the ability to fulfill his commitments in time.
He should have a positive attitude rather than negative assertiveness.
He must be very creative and innovative.
Influence
Influence is the process of changing someone behavior. Influence helps individuals in learning the increase of the personal performance and the effectiveness of the team by the employment of the influence tactics. These tactics include decisiveness, combination, sagacity, exchange, upward request, and alliance formation (Kotter, 2010).
These are the influential traits which must be contained by the leader. For the leader to impart a strong impression on his employees or to influence them in a coordinated manner, then he should contain such traits, and he must apply them while influencing them (Krause, 2004).
Power and influence
Coercive supremacy= decisiveness and association
Referent power= incorporation
Expert power= prudence
Reward power= exchange
Legitimate power= upward appeal
The use of the influential tactics is also dependent on the one whom you want to influence that person, peer, subordinates, and supervisors (Kotter, 2010).
Influence styles
There are four influencing styles.
Assertive persuasion
Assertive persuasion involves the usage of the facts and the figures, logical and rational arguments, and the use of persuasive reasoning. These factors must be present in the leader for doing the assertive persuasion (Haslam, Reicher and Platow, 2010).
Participation and Trust
In this, the leader should adopt the style with the help of which he admires the participation of the people and the group members, and if they feel shy or hesitate then, the leader should tell him that he trusts you and appreciate his participation (Haslam, Reicher and Platow, 2010).
Reward and punishment
The third way to influence is by rewarding them for their good job and allocating the punishments when they do something wrong (Haslam, Reicher and Platow, 2010).
Common vision
The leader, in this case, strengthens the visions of the team members so that the desired results would achieve (Kotter, 2010).
Types of power
There are two forms of a power position and personal. These two forms of powers are further combined with each other and generate the five types of power. Following are the French and Ravens five forms of power (Krause, 2004).
Legitimate power
This type of demands for the rights to make the demand and in return expects acquiescence and obedience from others. The person makes a demand in this, and he expects that his demand must be fulfilled. Legitimate power is related to the rank of the person in the organization. They expect that they have a complete authority of making a demand on other and in return want the results as well. Legitimate power gives the people a power of having control over their direct reporter. The most senior persons in the teams, the more positional power they acquire and more acknowledgment they receive. All managers certainly have some power of legitimacy (Ansari, 1990).
Warnings
In this case, people respect your rank and not you. Your ability to use the legitimatize power to influence other is mostly prohibited in those situations where people think that they have a power of influencing their behaviors and attitudes. Do not rely on the legislative power as doing so may abuse their power. By using this power, the employees feel that they have no importance in the eyes of their boss. They feel hurt.
Referent Power
It is the consequences of the person’s perceived attractiveness, earnestness and right to respect for others. It is the power in which the people with their abilities identify the traits in other people. These include the personal traits and desirable resources. The concept of charismatic power is also known which usually comes from the personal characteristics of the person. For example their energy, compassion, leisure, hilarity, stoutness, allure. People own such characteristics with the help of which they influence their employee. But, again the main thing which one should have in his mind, that they do not abuse them (Ansari, 1990).
Reward Power
The reward is considered to be as the results from one person’s ability to compensate the other people for the compliance. In this type, the outcomes of one person’s ability are used to compensate the other person negligence. Reward power is the ability to give the rewards to the employees. An example of these rewards includes that giving compensations, handsome salaries, provident funds, increase in pay, increments, developmental and training opportunities, and compliments. Reward power is the outcome of the positional power. It is limited to the position in the organization. Sometimes the manager does not have a complete authority of giving the rewards to their employees. It may be shared by the two managers. However, due to the rank, they have some influence on the rewards (Krause, 2004).
Coercive Power
In this state the person having the power can punish the next person for the non-compliance. If the person is not working with the person who gives him the instructions, then the boss may get harsh on him and show rude attitude and punish them.
It is the opposite of the reward power. It is the power in which the one is using the threats and punishments to get the work out from the people and their sub-employees. Many managers are leading their selves to great trouble by adopting these powers. Excess usage of this power may prove fatal, and it should be avoided. Leadership’s styles tend to be quite autocratic. The best leader is the one who do not utilize his authorities by going out of the context (Ansari, 1990).
Expert Power
This power is based on the skills and the abilities of the person. The skills and knowledge are superior to the other people. Expert power is the ability to have the extraordinary knowledge about something and highly skillful in their field. They know that they have a flood of knowledge which is endless, and they are the experts in their field. People would love to listen to those people who show some expertise knowledge and behave like a proficient. Any expert power is not in need of the positional power (Krause, 2004).
How can the one develop the expert power as a leader?
Use your skills in such a way that it offers a complete source of guidance and the support to the team members. And it should motivate them.
Use your power in such a way so that you may get the praise from your peers, employees subordinates about the skills, abilities, and knowledge you have.
Build the knowledge and the expertise level which you think is essential for this position.
One should keep his self-aware of the innovation which is happening across the globe.
Maintain your reliability by doing the active participation in the conversations so that your peers may not think that you are unaware of the facts and the information. It is considered to be the very important skill in bringing the change and resistance management (Haslam, Reicher and Platow, 2010).
Power and its relationship to leadership
As it is already mention and explained in detail that power is the ability of a person to which it influences the other people. It is impossible for the leadership to exist without the power of influence. The good leaders lead in such a way that they have best-influencing powers. Power has the ability which can bring changes in the people’s beliefs, values, ideas, perspectives and many such related things. The concept of power and leadership is related to each other, but they both influence differently. By power, one can persuade the action of the other person. Power has different types which are discussed in detail. With power, one can take the work out of the other person through different techniques. The best leader is the one who by utilizing his powers get the work out from his employees and influenced them in such a way that they would not resist him or try to do things in a wrong way. Power forces the people to do work against their will (Haslam, Reicher and Platow, 2010).
Let’s here take an example that you are working in a company under your boss and your boss is asking you to take his children from the club and drop them at home. You have a holiday on Saturday but you are forced by your boss to do this and this is against your will but you have to do this. Similarly, the boss can influence his employee and persuade him in such a way that he will do all that with his own will. If the boss asks him in a helping way that if you help me in driving my children to home I will be grateful then they will definitely work for him in an inclined manner (Ansari, 1990).
Five organizational sources
The organizational sources further categorized into role, resources, information, network and reputation.
One Meta source
These sources of power are the greater source with the help of which one can influence the people in an affectionate manner. These elements are similar to the leadership traits which include determination, intelligence, integrity, social ability and self-determination (Haslam, Reicher and Platow, 2010).
Use of power in an effective way
The leader must know about the qualities, personalities, culture and the related information about the team members and peers. By knowing the qualities and abilities of the individual person of the team members the leaders can make decision in an effective way and this will probably be the source of good output. Moreover, the leader should know the traits and qualities of him that in what way he should excel himself and coordinate his coworkers (Ansari, 1990).
Authority and generation of charisma
The leader should not misuse the authority and the power which he owns. He should try to avoid the complex situation and the multiple people. And if the leader is unable to convince his subordinates and less influential effects on his employees then leader must generate the charisma. If he fail to convince his followers then he must adopt such type of tactics that help him in getting the qualities which later on help him in influence his employees (Haslam, Reicher and Platow, 2010).
References
Ansari, M. A. (1990). Managing people at work: Leadership styles and influence strategies. Sage Publications, Inc.
Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S. D., & Platow, M. J. (2010). The new psychology of leadership: Identity, influence and power. Psychology Press.
Kotter, J. P. (2010). Power and influence. Simon and Schuster.
Krause, D. E. (2004). Influence-based leadership as a determinant of the inclination to innovate and of innovation-related behaviors: An empirical investigation. The leadership quarterly, 15(1), 79-102.
Vecchio, R. P. (Ed.). (2007). Leadership: Understanding the dynamics of power and influence in organizations. University of Notre Dame Press.
