While working in the various job industries that are available, one will usually be accompanied by individuals from different cultures and backgrounds. Each person may have different expectations and ways of being motivated, which can determine the amount of effort that is put into their daily work and tasks. To assist with learning how to get others to cooperate in business matters, there are different power types that may influence the techniques and strategies for motivating individuals, along with various theories that can prove to be useful for people in leadership positions. Leadership, which is “guiding groups, organizations, and individuals to accomplish a goal” (Shockley-Zalabak, 2015, p. 245), is considered essential in organizations …show more content…
In no particular order, the first power type is called Expert power. Simply put, Expert power is a power based on the information that a leader knows, due to interacting with others who belong to familiar organizations. This type of power usually comes as the result of learning and growing within a particular role in an organization. Next, there is what is known as Referent power, which is the result of identifying with an individual or group. With Referent power, it is the outcome of the actions exhibited by a leader, that influences others to refer to him or her as an example. After Referent power is Legitimate power. Legitimate power comes from the titles, roles, or positions that people occupy (Shockley-Zalabak, 2015). For example, managers or supervisors will have Legitimate power over their subordinates due to the difference in their titles and authority levels. Following Legitimate power, there is Reward power. Reward power is when a leader or manager offers a source of tangible and intangible resources (Shockley-Zalabak, 2015). An example of Reward power is money, since it can be distributed based on one’s performance and can be a means of …show more content…
It has been stated how the transformational effect of charismatic leaders lead to increased follower motivation (Humphreys, 2009). Due to the various attributes that transformational leaders have, such as charisma and understanding, they are likely to motivate others to follow after the examples that they may display. There is also Effective followership. Effective followership prepares a person to be an Effective leader since being a follower is considered as a prerequisite to leading. According to Humphreys (2009), organizations are comprised of groups of followers and leaders, who are listening and taking direction from one
In this book, the authors Tom Rath and Barry Conchie examine the question “What are the keys to being an effective leader?” To answer this question they had a team that reviewed data collected from Gallup polls. The data came from interviews from 20,000 senior leaders, over a million teams and more than fifty years of Gallup Polls of the most admired leaders in the world. The authors then had the team do a study of more than 10,000 followers to find out why they follow the influential leaders in their life.
In this time of transition and uncertainty, research suggests that transformational leadership is highly effective (Straight, 2006). Leadership research has drifted from emphasis on the competence of leaders to “manage change” to the ability to “transform” organizations. Transformational leaders have attributes and behaviors needed to successfully motivate and empower employees. According to Bernard Bass (1990), transformational leadership occurs when a leader transforms, or changes, his or her followers in three important ways that together result in followers trusting the leader, performing behaviors that contribute to the achievement of organizational goals, and being motivated to perform at a high level. Transformational leaders can achieve greater performance by stimulating innovative ways of thinking and transforming follower’s beliefs and aspirations. Maxwell (Maxwell, 2007) articulates that most of the time, influence is more important than formal power or authority. I agree with him. Influence is very important in organizational and co...
Charisma and Transformational Leadership Since Bass’s (1981) discussion of transformational leadership in Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership, considerable data have accumulated regarding the factors that comprise transformational leadership, some of its effects on follower effort and performance, and certain developmental antecedents that instill leaders with transformational qualities. While these are discussed by Bass and by other chapter authors in this volume, it is important to note that charismatic leadership is central to the transformational process and accounts for the largest percentage of common variance in transformational leadership ratings. Followers want to emulate their charismatic leader, they place a great deal of trust in their leader’s judgment, as well as in his or her mission, they support the leader’s values and typically adopt them, and they frequently form strong emotional ties to the leader. Charismatic/transformational leadership, however, differs from earlier conceptualizations of charisma (House, 1977) in that the leader is also seen as demonstrating a concern for the individual needs of followers (treating followers on a one-to-one basis) and encouraging followers to look at old problems in new ways through intellectual stimulation. This is unlike purely charismatic leaders, who may intentionally or unintentionally fail to transform followers. Pure charismatics may find followers’ desire for autonomy a threat to their own leadership and hence intentionally keep followers from developing. They may also unintentionally fail to recognize followers’ needs (Avolio and Bass, 1987). And in regard to intellectual stimulation, we see a fundamental difference between the purely charismatic leader, who has traine...
McShane and von Glinow determine that the first three powers - legitimate, reward, and coercive power - are granted to persons through the organization or co-workers, whereas the two other powers – expert and referent power - depend on the “power holders own characteristics” (301). The first source of power that can be assigned to members of the organization is Legitimate Power, which is defined as an “agreement among organizational members that people in certain roles can request certain behavior of others” (302). This source of power generally results from different roles in the organization (hierarchy). Like the manager can expect his or her employees to do what he or she requires. Another source of power that can be given to employees is Reward Power, which is defined as “the person’s ability to control the allocation of rewards valued by others and to remove negative sections” (302). Reward power offers incentives and is the opposite of the third source of power, which is Coercive Power. Coercive power is the last source of power that is assigned to people and involves “the ability to apply punishment” (303). The fourth source of power is Expert Power, which does not originate from the position but rather from within the person. Expert power is “the capacity to influence others by possessing knowledge or skills that others value” (303). For instance, an employee can develop expert power when gaining important knowledge for the organizations that others would also like to have. The fifth source of power that does not depend on the role or position of an employee, but on the person’s own characteristics is Referent Power, which is defined as “the capacity to influence others on the basis of an identification with and respect for the power holder” (303).
The following essay is a discussion on the five power bases (which are coercive, reward, legitimate, expert, and referent), and the relationship between dependency and power. For each one of the power bases and the aforementioned relationship I will develop a thesis. The setting with which the theses are to be mined is a theoretical scenario where there is a company that creates marketing programs for the real estate industry: this company will be identified henceforth as Company A. Within Company A there are three employees; Employee 1 has worked in the marketing department for 12 yrs, Employee 2 is the only certified public accountant (CPA) in the accounting department, Employee 3 works in the sales department and has been with the corporation for a little over a year. The dynamics between these employees, their peers and managers create the framework wherein the theses are to be developed.
“With transformational leadership, the followers feel trust, admiration, loyalty, and respect towards the leader, and they are more motivated to do more than they originally expected to
Effective leadership and employee motivation varies widely depending on the industry an organization operates within. Finding the most effective leadership style to motivate followers is dependent upon the type of level of power a leader has within the organization and with his followers. Additionally, a leader, employing any of the leadership styles, will only be successful if they understand what motivates their followers. A balance between power and motivation must be maintained in order to attain the goals of an organization.
Every organization requires effective followership and leadership to reach peak performance. Effective followers use creativity, intrinsic motivations, and commitment to the organization to ensure its success. In addition, great followers need great leaders to guide them and build them into future leaders. Great leaders understand the importance of various followership styles and traits and use them to benefit the organization while helping followers achieve greatness as well. Futhermore, great followers and leaders strive to continually build on their strengths and weaknesses. With that in mind, strengths and areas of improvement will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
Transformational leaders seek to transform self-concepts and personal values of the followers so that followers can widen and raise their aspirations and needs to concentrate and attain greater levels of potential and needs. This higher value alignment level as reported by Dvir et al. (2002) and Kark and Shamir (2002) strengthen the influence of transformational leaders on the intrinsic motivation of employees that on other styles of leadership. Ross and Bruce (2007) and Woodward and Hendry (2004) analyzed a model comprising of self-efficacy of followers and goal level. Identifiers of higher self-efficacy level would respond positively to leaders who comprehend the overall collective effort of a group. Nevertheless,
Power is defined in the course study notes as the “ability of individuals or groups to get what they want despite the opposition”. Power is derived from a variety of sources including knowledge, experience and environmental uncertainties (Denhardt et al, 2001). It is also important to recognize that power is specific to each situation. Individuals or groups that may be entirely powerful in one situation may find themselves with little or no power in another. The county Registrar of Voters, who is my boss, is a perfect example. In running the local elections office, she can exercise the ultimate power. However, in a situation where she attempted to get the county selected for a desirable, statewide pilot project, she was powerless, completely at the mercy of the Secretary of State. Power is difficult to measure and even to recognize, yet it plays a major role in explaining authority. In organizations, power is most likely exercised in situations where “the stakes are high, resources are limited, and goals and processes are unclear” (Denhardt et al, 2001). The absence of power in organizations forces us to rely on soley hierarchical authority.
Motivation and Leadership are intrinsically linked in the fact that one allows an easement in the process of the other. Without the ability to use the mutual relationship of leadership to influence the motivators of followers, leaders stagnate and are limited by their own inability to accomplish all that must be for real change to occur. In less Rostonian terms (that is, based on Rost (1993)), without a motivated group of followers leaders are stranded and not achieving to a level of excellence. This paper will discuss some areas of importance for motivation in leadership as well as an application to leadership theory and a discussion on personal motivators.
Followership is an important concept for leaders to understand because without a solid base of followers, a leader is nothing. Followers are people who support and obey the wishes of a leader. Even if an organization has the greatest leader in the history of leaders, the organization can still fail without the development of its members. Followers are the individuals who make the organization function. Identifying and improving their skills will help bolster the organization. The continuing push for efficiency in all aspects of business is another valuable aspect of the importance of followership (Kelley). When people work together more efficiently, it saves time and m...
Max Weber developed a concept of power explaining 3 sources of it. Relatively to sources he distinguished charismatic, traditional and legal types of authority. Richard Emerson continued to work on the concept of power. He studies power-dependence relation and looks deeper on its nature. Emerson explains that dependency of one subject - B (person or group) from the other subject A (person or group) develops, when there is a desirable goal or need and limitation on its availability and when subject A can facilitate in reaching of this goal. At the same moment subject A develop a power upon subject B. The definition of power suggested in the article is an ability to overcome resistance. Thus subject A can force subject B to overcome resistance to something that he does not want to do in exchange of a desirable goal or reward. The goal in this context could be love or friendship or any other thing that can be a valuable yet unavailable for one and
Leadership is a very difficult task to perform which interacts with behavioural, relational and situational elements. Moreover it does not concern only the individual but also resides at the individual, group and organizational levels. The leadership is promoted at the top of the organization in which they have to motivate employees of the organisation for good performance. In addition to its leadership improve both expectations, and reward systems to motivate their employees and to increase group performance. (D. Van Seters, R. Field: 2007). Motivating employees is totally depending on the leader that what type of leadership style is applied which will directly relate to group performance. If the good motivation is provided to employee job satisfaction and well approach towards work will automatically come in employee moreover it will create strong bonding between job satisfactions and motivation. Outcome of the company is depending on the performance of group or individual performance of employee regardless of any
“True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that can’t be mandated. It must be earned” (Maxwell, 1998, p. 4). Leaders who successfully earn the respect, appreciation, and admiration of their followers unlock opportunities for growth and open doors to greatness that may remain closed and locked otherwise. Great leaders rely on their influence to build and leverage relational equity so that together, the leader and his or her followers can achieve exponentially more than they ever could have as individuals. As much as followers need leaders, leaders also need followers. Pisapia (2009) found that strategic leaders use social influence to engage their followers and move them from simply compliant to fully committed.