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Power and Influence

Power and Influence

What comes to mind when you think of power? Is power a good thing or a bad thing? Do leaders have power over others? When you think of leadership, you may automatically picture a person that has power. Or you may think that a leader can influence others without necessarily having power over them. Early in history, leaders were characterized as having power. For example, Shakespeare wrote about power in many of his plays. In this lesson we will discuss the issues of power and influence in leadership.

For this lesson; power and influence, you will see that there is no Northouse (2013) chapter. Northouse for some reason has never included this in his book. Large portions of this lesson are based on Hughes, Ginnett, and Curphy (2012), which you have probably seen cited elsewhere in this course. If you are looking for another good resource for your leadership repertoire, this book is highly recommended. 

What will we learn in this lesson?

At the end of this lesson you will be able to:

• Distinguish between power and influence.
• Explain the taxonomy of social power and the pros and cons of each type of power.
• Understand where power comes from.
• Discuss influence tactics.
• Discuss social influence

Lesson 7 Road Map

Note: The purpose of the Lesson Road Map is to give you an idea of what will be expected of you for each lesson. You will be directed to specific tasks as you proceed through the lesson.

• Lesson commentary: Power & Influence

• Power and Influence Discussion
• Blog

Introduction to Power and Influence

Power is the capacity to produce effects on others (House, 1984), or the potential to influence others (Bass, 1990).

Traditionally, power has been seen as something that a leader possesses. However, power is a function of the leader, the followers, and the situation (sound familiar?) Leaders can potentially influence the behaviors and attitudes of their followers. But followers can also affect the behavior and attitudes of the leader. Many people use the terms “power” and “influence” interchangeably. However, for this lesson we will distinguish between them.

Influence is the change in a target agent’s attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors as a result of influence tactics.

Influence tactics are one person’s actual behaviors designed to change another person’s attitudes, beliefs, values, or behaviors. These are the behaviors exhibited by one person to influence another. They range from emotional appeals, to the exchange of favors, to threats. People with more power will probably use a wider range of influence tactics than individuals with little power. Keep in mind that both leaders and followers can use influence tactics.

You may now be asking what the difference really is between power and influence. In a nutshell, power is the capacity to cause change and influence is the degree of actual change in attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors. This means that influence can be measured by the behaviors or attitudes of followers. Let’s use an example to clarify all of this. Pretend that I am your leader. I have power over you in that I have the capacity to cause change in your work patterns (since I can decide your grade). Now we could see my influence over you when you actually make corrections to your assignment (change in behavior) in order to obtain a higher grade.

Power and Leadership

A number of perspectives have been developed to explain power and leadership. We will now discuss different sources of power.

Sources of Leader Power

Where do leaders get their power? Do leaders just have their power, or do they get it from their followers? Do I have natural power as an instructor, or do you as students give it to me?

There are many things that affect a leader’s or a follower’s power. Can you recall a time when you were called to your boss’s office (or the principal’s office) for a meeting? Maybe you were kept sitting in the office for an hour. Or maybe you had to stand up and wait because there was no place to sit. I bet you felt really frustrated and powerless. I hate it when I’m in this situation! This is the leader establishing power over us. Office furniture can also signify power. For example, a rectangular meeting table signifies that those sitting at the ends have power, while a circular table signifies that everyone has equal power. Those with private offices have more power than those sitting in a cubicle.

Think about the last time you were in your doctor’s office. Were there diplomas and awards on the wall? This is another way to increase one’s power. So is using a title such as “doctor”. James Brown is seen as having more power if he is called “Dr. Brown” than if he is called “Mr. Brown.”

Finally, clothing can affect one’s power. When we want to be seen as more powerful we often dress in suits. This is because we are judged to have more power dressed in a suit than in jeans and a t-shirt. A classic study by Bickman (1974) shows this effect. In this study, people walking along a sidewalk were stopped by a person dressed in regular clothes or a security guard uniform. They were asked to give a dime to a guy parked at a meter who had no change. When the request was given by someone in regular clothes, less than half of the participants actually gave the man change. However, when the request was given by the person dressed as a security guard, over 90% gave the man change.

Taxonomy of Social Power

French and Raven (1959) came up with five ways that individuals can influence others. It is important that we understand these bases of power, which are: expert power, referent power, legitimate power, reward power, and coercive power.

Expert Power: Expert power is primarily a function of the leader. It is the power of knowledge. An expert in a particular area can influence other people. In psychology there are certain people that are seen as experts in specific topics. For instance, a leading theorist in intergroup conflict is Felicia Pratto. Thus, Dr. Pratto has expert power. As another example, a surgeon may have power in a hospital because people depend on her or his knowledge and skill.

Expert power is a function of the amount of knowledge one possesses relative to the rest of the members of the group. This means that in certain situations, followers may have more expert power than leaders. When a new manager is appointed, the followers (who have worked at the job for 10 years) have more expert power than the leader.

Referent Power: Referent power is a function of the leader and follower. It is the potential influence one had due to the strength of the relationship between the leader and followers. When the leader is seen as a role model, he/she has referent power. Referent power takes time to develop. It can also have a downside. A desire to keep referent power may limit a leader’s actions in some situations. Managers that want to be liked by employees may have a hard time firing an incompetent employee, even when the person is costing the organization more money than they are bringing in.

Legitimate Power: Legitimate power is a function of the situation. It depends on a person’s role in the organization and can be thought of as one’s formal authority. The boss has the legitimate power to assign projects and the teacher has the legitimate power to assign papers and homework. Legitimate power means that a leader has authority because of the role he or she has been assigned in the organization.

Keep in mind that legitimate power and leadership are not the same thing. Holding a position and being a leader are not synonymous. While the head of an organization may be a true leader, s/he may also not be a true leader. People need more than legitimate power to be successful leaders.

Reward Power: Reward power is a function of the relationship among leaders, followers, and the situation. It involves the potential to influence others due to one’s control over desired resources. Someone with reward power can give raises, bonuses, promotions, can distribute parking spaces, or can grant tenure. Baseball players can be elected to the all-star team. Since the fans can elect the players, they have reward power.

The rewards that are distributed depend on the situation. For example, fans can elect baseball players to the all-star team, but cannot elect to give the players new cars (not that they need them!) A manager at Wendy’s can choose the employee of the month, but cannot elect an employee to the all-star team.

In some situations a leader’s use of reward power can be a problem. A superior may think that a reward is valued when it is not. For examples, a manager at Target may think that employees really want to be the employee of the month. However, employees may think that this is a stupid reward, and don’t want their picture on the wall for everyone to see and make fun of. Another problem with reward power, is that it may produce compliance, but not commitment. Subordinates may get the job done to get the reward, but not do anything extra to make the company a better place.

 Leaders can influence others based on reward power if they:

• Determine what rewards are available.
• Determine what rewards are valued by followers, and
• Establish clear policies for the fair administration of rewards for good performance.

Coercive Power: Coercive power is a function of the leader and situation. It is the opposite of reward power. It is the ability to control others through the fear of punishment or the loss of valued outcomes. One example of coercive power that most of us are familiar with is a policeman giving tickets for speeding.

Coercive power can be used appropriately or inappropriately. An example of coercive power being used inappropriately was the cult led by Jim Jones. Under Jones’s direction, 912 people drank from large vats of a flavored drink containing cyanide. Jones had a history of leading by fear and thus held coercive power over his followers.

Coercive power can also be expressed implicitly. For example, employees may feel pressure to donate money to their boss’s favorite charity.

You may now want to know which type of power is best to use. Unfortunately, this question cannot be answered. The situation influences the type of power that a leader should use. Generally, though, leaders who rely mostly on referent and expert power have subordinates who are more motivated and satisfied, are absent less, and perform better (Yukl, 2009).

We also know a few things about effective leaders. First, effective leaders usually take advantage of all their sources of power. Second, leaders in well-functioning organizations have strong influence over their subordinates, but are also open to being influenced by them. Third, leaders vary in the extent to which they share power with subordinates. Finally, effective leaders generally work to increase their various power bases.

Leader Motives

It is important to think about the individual leader’s personality when we are discussing power and leadership. All people vary in their personal motivation to have or wield power.

Need for Power: the motivation to influence or control others (McClelland, 1975; McClelland & Burnham, 2008). Individuals with a high need for power get satisfaction from influencing others. They look for positions where they can influence others. They are good at building trusting relationships and they can be outspoken and forceful. They like to see signs of their authority and status and like others to defer to them. The need for power has shown to be positively related to success for nontechnical managers (McClelland & Boyatzis, 1982).

• Personalized power: individuals with high need for personalized power are selfish, impulsive, uninhibited, and lacking in self-control. These people exercise power for their own needs, not for the good of the organization.
• Socialized power: is expressed in the service of higher goals to others or organizations and involves self-sacrifice toward those ends. It often involves empowering, rather than an autocratic style of leadership.

Motivation to Manage

People vary in their motivation to manage as well as in their need for power. There are six composites for the motivation to manage (Miner, 1974);

• Maintaining good relationships with authority figures.
• Wanting to compete for recognition and advancement.
• Being active and assertive.
• Wanting to exercise influence over subordinates.
• Being visibly different from followers.
• Being willing to do routine administrative tasks.

Leadership practitioners can learn a number of important things from the research on need for power and motivation to manage. First, not all individuals like being leaders. Those with a low need for power may not want to lead. Second, a high need for power or motivation to manage does not guarantee leadership success. Miner (1978) found that motivation to manage was related to leadership success only in bureaucratic organizations. Third, in order to be successful in the long term, leaders may have to have a high need for socialized power. Leaders who impulsively exercise power to satisfy their own selfish needs will probably be ineffective in the long term. Finally, followers, as well as leaders, differ in the need for power and motivation to manage. Leaders may need to behave differently toward different followers.

Influence Tactics

As we talked about earlier, power is the potential to influence others and influence tactics are the actual behaviors used by an individual to change the attitudes, opinions, or behaviors of a target person. There are a number of different influence tactics.

Types of Influence Tactics

We will discuss nine influence tactics. These are assessed by the Influence Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ; Yukl et al., 1992), which was developed to study influence tactics.

• Rational Persuasion: agents use logical arguments or factual evidence to influence others. An example of this would be when a politician explains that taxes need to be raised in order for school children to have new books and supplies.
• Inspirational Appeals: agents make a request or proposal designed to arouse enthusiasm or emotions in targets. An example is when a church minister pleas with members to donate money for a new church.
• Consultation: agents ask targets to participate in planning an activity. An example is when a town leader asks for the help of residents to help plan a new playground for the children.
• Ingratiation: agents attempt to get the target in a good mood before making a request. An example is a salesperson flatters you in order to convince you to buy a product.
• Personal Appeals: agents ask another to do a favor out of friendship. If you ask your friend to help you with a project because you’ve been friends for a long time, you are making a personal appeal.
• Exchange: influencing a target through the exchange of favors. If you ask a friend to watch your child because you watched his child last week, you are using an exchange tactic.
• Coalition Tactics: agents seek the aid or support of others to influence the target. An example is when several students band together in order to ask a teacher for a deadline to be moved up.
• Pressure Tactics: threats or persistent reminders used to influence targets. If a boss threatened the loss of salary or reward, he would be using pressure tactics.
• Legitimizing Tactics: agents make requests based on their position or authority. An example is when a principal asks a teacher to be on a committee and the teacher agrees because of the principal’s role, even though she doesn’t want to be on the committee.

Mini Activity

Can you think of a time when you used any of these influence tactics?

Influence Tactics and Power

One’s influence tactic of choice depends on many factors such as intended outcomes and one’s power relative to the target person.

There is a strong relationship between the relative power of agents and targets and the types of influence targets used. Leaders with high amounts of referent power have built up close relationships with followers and may be able to use a wide variety of influence tactics. Leaders with high referent power generally do not use legitimizing or pressure tactics. Leaders who have only coercive or legitimate power may be able to use only coalition, legitimizing, or pressure tactics to influence followers.

People usually use legitimizing or pressure tactics when an influencer has the upper hand, when resistance is anticipated, or when the other person’s behavior violates important norms. People use ingratiation when they are at a disadvantage, when they expect resistance, or when they will personally benefit if the attempt is successful. People typically use the exchange and rational appeal when parties are relatively equal in power, when resistance is not anticipated, and when the benefits are organizational as well as personal.

Leaders should pay attention to how they are influencing others and to why they believe such methods are called for. Influence efforts intended to build others up more frequently lead to positive results than those efforts intended to put others down. One’s influence tactic of choice depends on many factors such as intended outcomes and one’s power relative to the target person.

Social Influence

In addition to the long line of research and theory on influence tactics in industrial and organizational psychology, social psychology also has created a substantial amount of knowledge in this area as well. In fact, social influence is considered a cornerstone of the field. One of the leading authors in this area is Robert Cialdini (2006; 2008), who has written a series of theory and science to practice books on the topic. But in general the idea of social influence is activating automatic processing (unconscious thoughts and behaviors that once triggered produce very predictable responses) in others for them to comply with your requests. In particular there are certain behaviors that one can use to follow through with our requests.

We will highlight Cialdini’s 6 principles of social influence, but there are others that you may want to investigate.

• Reciprocity. One way to influence someone is to give them something. Humans are social creatures, and as such are programmed to return favors. That is why charities very often include “free gifts” when soliciting donations; it increases the amount of donations they receive as people feel obligated to return the favor.
• Commitment and Consistency. Very simply, if as a leader you can get a person to verbally or in writing commit to an idea, they are much more likely to follow through on it. This is particularly true if the commitment is restated consistently. This is actually the idea behind pledges of allegiance. In other domains of psychology you may have heard this referred to as “the best predictor of behavior is intention.”
• Social Proof. People will follow along with others. Again, as social creatures, people like to fit it in. So if other people are doing it, it must be a good thing. If you are at all familiar with Asch’s classic conformity studies using lines, this is the principle at work. Social proof is particularly effective in situations that are ambiguous or where there are no other clues as to how to behave, as people then start actively looking to others for what to do.
• Authority. As mentioned above, there is a certain power that comes from people being in charge. While people may complain about it, the majority will follow through on requests from authority figures. This was demonstrated in the classic research of Milgram as well as many study replications across the globe.
• Liking. We tend to listen to people we like. Who do you go to for advice? Do you often heed that advice? This is the idea behind why we are more likely to buy over-priced items from kids in our neighborhood when they are raising money for their school. Liking is also the principle behind why viral-marketing works (in addition to social proof).
• Scarcity. Would you like a Ferrari? Most people say yes to that question, but the reality of a Ferrari is that they are highly cramped to sit in with almost no cargo space (even going for an overnight trip is hard to pack for), incredibly high maintenance, and highly impractical (they are so low to the ground they very easily scrape the ground when there are changes in the angle of the road). But because only a limited number are made each year (orders often have to be placed years in advance) they become highly desirable because they are difficult to obtain. The same idea can apply in the work world. A rare promotion opportunity can entice quite a few people to work harder.

Lesson 7 Wrap-Up

In this lesson, we discussed the interaction of power and leadership. We differentiated between power and influence. Power is the capacity to cause change and influence is the degree of actual change in attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors. Furthermore, influence tactics are one person’s actual behaviors designed to change another person’s attitudes, beliefs, values, or behaviors.

We also discussed sources of power. Power can be communicated in many ways, from the way an office is designed to the type of clothes that an individual is wearing. There are five types of power that an individual can display: expert power, referent power, legitimate power, reward power, and coercive power. Using each of these types of power has pros and cons. Leaders and follower utilize different types of power in different situations.

People vary in their personal motivation to have or wield power. Some people are high in need for power and high in motivation to lead, while others are low. There are two types of need for power: need for personal power and need for socialized power.

Leaders and followers use a number of influence tactics in order to influence behavior. These tactics include: rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, consultation, ingratiation, personal appeals, exchange, coalition tactics, pressure tactics, and legitimizing tactics.

Finally, knowledge of some basic human tendencies can allow a person to use social influence. The 6 principles are: liking, social proof, commitment and consistency, authority, scarcity, and reciprocity. Uses these principles can trigger automatic behaviors in others to comply with requests.

Lesson 7 Assignments  

Power and Influence Discussion

1. After reading the lesson commentary and the assigned Northouse chapters, watch the following video:

Jeffrey Pfeffer: Power and Influence in the Collaborative Age

1. How do the ideas from our lesson fit with the ideas in the video? Be specific in your connections. Post your analysis and respond to your classmates’ analyses on the Lesson 7: Power and Influence discussion forum.
2. See discussion board instructions for details on requirements for your posts.

Blog

1. This is a chance to blog about the ideas from the course.

2. There is no set topic for the blog, you can write about anything you notice about leadership in your life (or read about or see on television or from anywhere). You simply need to apply the ideas we have discussed in class.

3. See full blog instructions for details on requirements for your entry.
    

Please be sure to submit all assignments by the due dates listed in the course syllabus.

References

Bass, B. M., (1990). Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership. 3rd ed. New York: Free Press.

Bickman, L (1974). The social power of a uniform. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 47-61.

Cialdini, R.B. (2006). Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: Harper Collins.

Cialdini, R.B. (2008). Influence: Science and Practice. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

French, J. & Raven, B. H. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies of Social Power. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research.

House, R. J. (1984). Power in Organizations: A Social Psychological Perspective. Unpublished manuscript, University of Toronto.

Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R. C., & Curphy, G. J. (2012). Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies.

McClelland, D. C. (1975). Power: The Inner Experience. New York: Irvington.

McClelland, D. C., & Boyatzis, R. E. (1982). Leadership motive pattern and long-term success in management. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 737-743.

Miner, J. B. (1974). Student attitudes toward bureaucratic role prescriptions and the prospects for managerial shortages. Personnel Psychology, 27, 605-613.

Miner, J. B. (1978). Twenty years of research on role motivation theory of managerial effectiveness. Personnel Psychology, 31, 739-760.

Yukl, G. A. (2009). Leadership in Organizations (2nd Ed). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Yukl, G. A., Lepsinger, R., & Lucia, T. (1992). Preliminary report on the development and validation of the influence behavior questionnaire. In K. E. Clark, M. B. Clark, & D. P. Campbell (Eds.), Impact of Leadership. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.

Top of page

Which influence tactic entails flattering or praising someone to put them in a good mood or to make them more likely to want to help?

What are influence tactics?

Which of the following influence tactics is the most effective?

Which of the following political tactics involves an attempt to influence decisions before they are made?