Power can be defined as a manager's ability to influence others.

Influence is what managers have when they use power in such a way that it results in some behavioral
response in others.

2 Types of Power based on power sources (French and Raven's Five Forms of Power)

1. Positional Power Sources - is a result of a manager's position within the organization.

a. Legitimate Power
i. stems from the manager's position in the organization and the authority that lies
in that position.
ii. employees believe that the manager has the authority to direct their actions, and
they willingly comply with those requests.
b. Reward Power
i. is the extent to which a manager can use rewards to influence others.
ii. Managers have power to reward subordinates for their actions when those
behaviors meet or exceed performance expectations.
c. Coercive Power
i. is the opposite of reward power.
ii. it is used by managers to punish subordinates for not meeting performance
expectations or to deter subordinates from making decisions that will negatively
affect the organization.

Legitimate power and reward power are thought to be a positive use of power by subordinates,
making them more likely to result in a positive response and greater compliance.

Coercive power, however, can lead to a high degree of resistance and deliberate disobedience in
subordinates who resent the use of coercive power by managers to influence their behavior.

2. Personal Power Sources - is independent from the position a manager holds in an organization
and rests solely in the individual.
a. Referent Power
i. is the result of subordinate respect and adoration for the manager and is seen
when an employee seeks to identify with the manager with whom they admire.
ii. is commonly seen in charismatic leaders who are able to invoke a passion for
followership due to the leader's magnetic personality.
iii. Subordinates are willing to follow their manager's requests simply because of the
manner in which they deal with and treat subordinates.

** EXAMPLE: From the entertainment world, Laga Gaga is an example of someone with referent power,
having 67 million Twitter followers. These people respect her and want to know what she is up to. Some
even aspire to be like her. In this respect, she has referent power over her followers.**

b. Expert Power
i. Allows a manager to influence the behaviors of subordinates through their
special knowledge, experience or skills relating to work the subordinates must
perform.
 ii. Being an expert makes a bold statement to employees that the manager knows
what they are doing and can provide necessary direction for how the
subordinates can be successful themselves.
iii. Expert power does not require positional power.

** How can you use and develop expert power as a leader? **

**Six years later, Raven added an extra power base: **

c. Informational – Having control over information that others need or want puts you in a
powerful position.
- Having access to confidential financial reports, being aware of who's due
to be laid off, and knowing where your team is going for its annual “away
day” are all examples of informational power.
- In the modern economy, information is a particularly potent form of
power.
- The power derives not from the information itself but from having access
to it, and from being in a position to share, withhold, manipulate, distort,
or conceal it. With this type of power, you can use information to help
others, or as a weapon or a bargaining tool against them.

Activity

1. Sheila asks her manager Jack to approve her personal time off, Kelly knows that Jack has the
power to either approve or deny that request. Regardless of Jack's decision, Kelly must comply.

2. Ellen exceeds her sales quota for the first quarter of the organization's fiscal year, her manager
Jeffrey rewards her with a bonus check for 5,000 gift certificate and sends out an e-mail to her
coworkers acknowledging the good job Ellen has done.

3. Jill is a coworker of Lily who, unlike Lily, failed to meet her sales quota last quarter. Joseph is fed
up with Jill's inability to make sales and wants her to be transferred to another team or even
fired. However, Joseph does not have this authority. He does have the power to recommend Jill's
transfer and/or termination to his boss, who has the authority to carry out the sanction.

4. Aubrey thinks that Mike is a great manager who is easy to talk to and has always done a good
job of treating her like an equal. When Mike asks Aubrey to work overtime, she agrees without
hesitation because she has seen Mike stay late on numerous occasions and she wants to do what
she thinks will please Mike.
5. Liza is a manager in a company that sells all of their products online namely LAZADICTS. At 3pm
on a Friday afternoon their database crashes. Employees leave at 6pm, and many of them can’t
work later as they have flights booked for a weekend getaway.

In this situation the manager is facing the prospect of lost sales not just for that night, but for the
whole weekend. This scenario would cost the company hundreds of thousands of pesos in lost
sales. Here comes Jerry, a junior engineer and said that his team could fix the problem
temporarily, at least for the weekend, in just two hours.

6.