Power and Influence
Theories
Chapter 6
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Chapter 6: The Main Idea
Leadership
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Power
Influence
Types of
Power
Position Power
Personal Power
Reward
Coercive
Legitimate
Expert
Referent
11 Methods
of Influence
The Social Exchange Theory
When one party uses power, another party experiences a form of loss
Empowerment
Introduction to Power and Influence Theories
• Everyone uses power and influence
• They are both important to leadership
• At times the differences between power and influence are small
• Power and influence are often confused with one another
• In the past (tribal, classical, pre-classical eras) power was seen as an effective tool to gain
compliance
• Today (progressive, post-progressive eras), influence is seen as a better option
• Failure to understand the differences between power and leadership can have bad effects
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Elements of Power
• Use of power has been long confused with leadership
• Since primitive times (such as the tribal era), leaders who used brute
power were considered successful
• Many definitions of power
• Control, manipulation, deceit, lack of free choice
• Power is a relationship between people – transacted
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Two Types of Power:
1. Two broad categories of power:
• Position power comes from resources or formal organizational control
• Personal power emerges from relationships and is more mature
2. Experienced leaders often resort to personal power rather
than position power
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Position Power
Stimuli = something that generates a response.
• Reward power – trading positive stimuli for a
desired behavior
• Coercive power – ability to stop negative
consequences in return for a desired behavior
• Legitimate power – perception of authority and
status in an organization
Personal Power
• Expert power – derived from the perception that a
person has expert knowledge about a particular
field or subject
• Referent power – occurs when people create strong
professional bonds of mutual respect
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5 Ways Power is Created
• Ownership or investment
• Popularity or charisma
• Possession of resources
• Access to opportunities
• Association, connections, or networks
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Social Exchange Theory
There are two main points:
•People with more power generally able to get more out of an
exchange than those holding less power.
•People measure the desirability of outcomes by comparing the costs
and benefits of using power.
When one party uses power,
another party experiences a form of loss
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Elements of Influence
• Leaders are agents of influence
• Influence requires freewill
• Lack of freewill is coercion
• Freewill is perceptual
• Influence comes from three basic sources
• Competency and knowledge
• Character and trust
• Dynamism and charisma
• Leaders and followers should strive to maximize all three basic
sources
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11 Tactics for Influence
• Rational persuasion
• Personal Appeal
• Apprising
• Ingratiation
• Inspirational Appeals
• Legitimating tactics
• Consultation
• Pressure
• Exchange
• Coalition tactics
• Collaboration
Empowerment
• Empowerment is one of the newest influence methods utilized.
• Empowerment is facilitating followers personal motivation by giving
them control over their projects.
• Empowerment pushes control down to the level where it really
belongs – those doing the project.
• Empowerment has been a popular buzzword of the 1990s.
• It is common for management to endorse empowerment, but to fail
to follow through on it.
• There are many advantages and some disadvantages to
empowerment. However, empowerment generally brings more
positive outcomes.
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To make empowering more effective…
• Negotiate responsibilities in the beginning
• Give authority equal to the responsibilities negotiated
• Communicate what is expected
• Provide necessary information, feedback, and resources for
success
• Trust project participants
• Demonstrate continuing respect for participants