Exploring Power Constructs in Leadership: A Self-Reflective Study

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Table of Contents

Research Section
Reflective analysis
Solutions
Plan
References

Research Section

Power is the ability to influence others in an organization. However, power is not a function of the leader only but also of the followers and situation. Leaders do not have to use power to influence their followers, but they have to possess the capacity to influence their followers (Hughes et al., 2021). Leaders can influence the attitude and behavior of their followers to achieve desired results. This study will analyze the constructs of power and how they can be applied in leadership, reflect on my strengths and weaknesses in using power, find solutions to my weaknesses, and create a plan to strengthen my power constructs and influence tactics.

A leader has five main power sources: expert, referent, reward, legitimate, and coercive. Expert power is the power that is gained from knowledge in specific areas. A lawyer may be considered powerful because he has won most cases in the court and is, hence the most preferred lawyer in a city. However, sometimes expert power can be subject to the amount of knowledge a person possesses, giving followers more knowledge than the leader (Hughes et al., 2021). For instance, if a new expert is brought into a company, he has to rely on the information from other subordinate employees who have stayed in the company for a long period to get his work done. Expert leadership is mostly a co-performing distributed type of leadership. This is whereby two or more joint leaders evaluate and coordinate actions and decisions of this type of leadership (Ford et al., 2021). Most expert decisions have to be reviewed by a business or other leaders before reaching the final decision. For instance, if a health expert states that a specific product is harmful for the population to consume before the product is re-modeled or taken out of the market, other leaders, such as the CEO, make the final decision based on the information from the expert. This shows that expert leadership is a co-performing role integrated with other leadership decisions to be implemented.

The second source of power for leaders is referent power, which is the leader’s influence over their followers. For instance, citizens may be responsible for a popular leader’s calls and unresponsive to other leaders’ calls. The degree of responsiveness of the followers is subject to the leader’s actions and the relationship they have with the followers (Hughes et al., 2021). However, referent power may affect organizational performance because leaders’ personal relationships with their followers often lead to biased behaviors. For instance, a leader may find it hard to punish an employee who is his friend or close follower to avoid losing the relationship. Referent power is based on the values of the leader. Sverdlik et al. (2022) conducted a study to determine the effect of benevolent leadership on the ability to influence followers and found that there was a strong relationship between follower-focused leadership and power values. The relationship between the two factors was high when the benevolence values were applied (Sverdlik et al., 2022). This shows that it is important for leaders who want to gain referent power to consider benevolence values in the leadership model for leaders.

Another type of leadership source is legitimate power. Legitimate power is based on a person’s organizational position, which gives them the authority to oversee some functions (Hughes et al., 2021). For instance, the CEO of a company has the legitimate power to assign projects and duties to their subordinates. Legitimate power gives leaders the authority to gain power through demands and requests, and their power is bound to that position (Hughes et al., 2021). It is important to note that legitimate power gives one authority, but it does not mean that they have leadership qualities. Additionally, employees can also use legitimate power to resist the influence of their leaders by sticking to the specific organizational rules they are assigned to.

Leaders can as well gain power through reward power, which is the ability to control desired resources. These leaders can give desired promotions, appoint employees, distribute donations, etc. The study by Shefer et al. (2017) demonstrated that rewards are used in organizations to enable employees to develop generative moments, utilize essential resources, satisfy organizational goals, and fulfill their psychological needs. Leaders gain power by rewarding their employees based on performance to motivate them in most organizations. However, this type of power is subject to the leader, followers, and function. For instance, the value of rewards that McDonald’s managers can give differs from what Elon Musk, one of the richest people on earth and the owner of Tesla, can give. Elon Musk can have more influence and power because he can give more based on his financial capability. However, through different innovative strategies, an employer can provide enticing rewards that will help overcome financial constraints.

Finally, there is coercive power whereby the leader uses administration and negative sanctions or eliminates positive events in the people’s lives. Unlike reward leadership, coercive power is gained through intimidation, blackmail, and fear of punishment. For instance, firing lazy employees, punishing un-performing students in school, and putting sanctions on countries against internal laws. Different countries are using Coercive power to fight for diversity by threatening to put regulatory pressures on companies that do not appoint women to their topmost seats (Mateos de Cabo et al., 2021). They are advocating for gender equality using coercive power. This shows that coercive power can advocate for equality and other positive means.

Reflective analysis

From the role play, I identified various personal strengths and weaknesses. One of the strengths in my leadership skills is the use of legitimate power to influence decisions. Legitimate power is based on the person’s role in the organization, and therefore as a park engineer, I can use my position as an engineer and senior consultant of the park to close the park if there is deemed to be danger waiting ahead (Hughes et al., 2021). In this regard, I effectively utilized Park Regulations to have the ride shut down because it did not meet the threshold of the needed regulations. Legitimate power gave me the authority to influence the decisions of other managers. As other managers were looking at the impact of the closure on the park’s financial situation and reputation, I was very keen to ensure that the ride met the safety guidelines outlined by the park’s regulations.

However, on the contrary, I noticed that I had weaknesses in implementing the exchange tactic. I could not successfully implement the exchange tactic by substituting the ride with a coaster that had been shut down for repairs (Hughes et al., 2021). This shows that the substitute was not significant to the problem I would have created by shutting down the ride. I was also lacking the innovativeness to create and attract offers to the managers that would make them allow me to shut down the ride in the first instance.

I have a problem with pursuing expert power. This is the power based on knowledge in a specific field (Hughes et al., 2021). Being a park engineer, I have a vast knowledge of the rides and can quickly tell when it’s faulty or not. However, I could still not convince the other managers about my decision to close the park. However, this challenge can be attributed to the function of expert leadership as a co-performing duty that requires other leaders to intervene before the final decision is made (Ford et al., 2021). I could not decide to close the ride using expert power because it had to be approved by other managers.

Solutions

One of the main weaknesses identified was using exchange tactics effectively to convince the managers that the second roller coaster shut up for repairs would effectively replace the faulty ride. However, according to a study by Ocasio et al. (2020), when an exchange tactic is not enough to make an organizational influence, there is a need to use coercive power to influence the change. This method helps bring out the negative consequences of what would happen if no action was taken. According to Kougiannou & Mendonça (2021), while some leaders will submit to the exchange as a reward, others will submit to coercive power because it would punish them. For instance, I would have used the exchange tactic and coercive power in the given scenario by giving the leaders the second roller coaster as an option to keep the park running while the faulty ride is undergoing repair. However, if they denied it, then coercive power would be effective by informing them that any casualties due to accidents in the ride would be directly accounted to them. This method would have provided the opposite consequences of their decisions, pushing them to accept the exchange tactic.

The other challenge was using expert power effectively to influence decisions in the organizations. In this scenario, some of the main methods for ensuring that expert power was well utilized would have been using pressure and rational persuasion tactics. The pressure tactic is whereby the leader exerts undue influence to ensure that something is done or undesirable actions may happen (Bourgoin et al., 2020). For instance, I should have exerted more pressure on Selena and Kelvin to accept my expert opinion or warn them that something undesirable or dangerous would happen to the rides if anything went wrong. Additionally, using rational persuasions, such as proving that the action taken is right, would have helped make expert power more successful (Stouten et al., 2018). I should have proved to Selena and Kevin that from experience, I have seen other similar cases in different parks ending tragedies.

Finally, although I utilized legitimate power effectively, there is a need to strengthen the influence tactics because legitimating tactics may not always be the modest way of exercising power. Applying legitimating and exchange tactics would be a more effective way of using legitimate power. Exchange tactics would include providing a promise or trading favor to solve the problem (Contu, 2022). For instance, I would promise them that after repairing the ride, the park would be more profitable because there would be no more delays caused by the accidents of the ride. This method works best because it ensures good relations between the different parties involved in the power rivalry.

Plan

Power construct	Influence Tactics
Coercive power	Exchange tactics
Expert power	Pressure and rational persuasion tactics
Legitimate power	tactic and exchange tactic

References

Bourgoin, A., Bencherki, N., & Faraj, S. (2020). “And Who Are You?”: A Performative Perspective on Authority in Organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 63(4), 1134–1165. Web.

Contu, A. (2022). Antigone: On Phronesis And How To Make Good and Timely Leadership Decisions.Academy of Management Review. Web.

Ford, J., Ford, L., & Polin, B. (2021). Leadership in the Implementation of Change: Functions, Sources, and Requisite Variety.Journal of Change Management, 21(1), 87–119. Web.

Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., & Curphy, G. (2021). Loose Leaf for Leadership (10th ed., pp. 1–768). McGraw-Hill Education.

Kougiannou, N. K., & Mendonça, P. (2021). Breaking the Managerial Silencing of Worker Voice in Platform Capitalism: The Rise of a Food Courier Network.British Journal of Management, 32(744–759). Web.

Mateos de Cabo, R., Grau, P., Gimeno, R., & Gabaldón, P. (2021). Shades of Power: Network Links with Gender Quotas and Corporate Governance Codes.British Journal of Management, 33(2), 703–723. Web.

Ocasio, W., Pozner, J.-E., & Milner, D. (2020). Varieties of Political Capital and Power in Organizations: A Review and Integrative Framework.Academy of Management Annals, 14(1), 303–338. Web.

Shefer, N., Carmeli, A., & Cohen-Meitar, R. (2017). Bringing Carl Rogers Back In: Exploring the Power of Positive Regard at Work. British Journal of Management, 29(1), 63–81. Web.

Stouten, J., Rousseau, D. M., & De Cremer, D. (2018). Successful Organizational Change: Integrating the Management Practice and Scholarly Literatures.Academy of Management Annals, 12(2), 752–788. Web.

Sverdlik, N., Oreg, S., & Berson, Y. (2022). The Power of Benevolence: The Joint Effects of Contrasting Leader Values on Follower‐Focused Leadership and its Outcomes.Journal of Organizational Behavior. Web.

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