Leadership Power

We have mentioned that leaders, other than managers, are not always formally-appointed. How do leaders then move people (followers) to support/go with them in reaching their goals?

It is accepted that leaders have four core sources of power and influence available to them. These are:

Formal (or legitimate) Power: This comes from being appointed by the organisation into a leadership position (i.e. as a manager).  Cultural norms tend to reinforce the view that a manager has the right to lead subordinates.

Expertise Power: This sort of power comes from having knowledge, skills and ability which are regarded as important by the leader’s followers.  With a formal leader, this expertise is usually associated with goal achievement.

Reward/Punishment Power: This comes from the leader having the ability to reward and punish followers. That is, they have influence over pay, promotion, and recognition of followers.

Personality Power: Many personal characteristics come into this category. If a leader is liked and respected by subordinates and peers, he or she will have more influence over them. This is sometimes called the power of charisma.  A charismatic leader is one who inspires his or her subordinates to achieve goals, through force of personality.

We all may differ in what we regard as being leadership characters/behaviour. Research conducted by Kirkpatrick and Locke in 1991 however highlighted six frails that differentiate leaders from non-leaders.

Drive: Leaders show a high effort level. They have a high desire for achievement, they are ambitious, they have a lot of energy, they are tirelessly persistent in their activities and they show initiative.

Desire to Lead: Leaders have an ardent desire to influence and lead others. They show a willingness to take responsibility.

Honesty and Integrity: Leaders build trusting relationships between themselves and followers by being truthful or non/deceitful and by showing high consistency between word and deed.

Self-Confidence: Followers look to leaders for an absence of self-doubt. Leaders, therefore, need to show self-confidence to convince followers of the rightness of goals and decisions.

Intelligence: Leaders need to be intelligent enough to gather, synthesise and interpret copious amounts of information and to be able to create visions, solve problems and make correct decisions.

Job-Relevant Knowledge: Effective leaders have a high degree of knowledge about the company, the industry, and technical matters. In-depth knowledge allows leaders to make well-informed decisions and to understand the implications of those decisions.