The Bases of Power and the Use of Power by Managers

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Power is defined as “the potential ability to influence behaviour, to change the course of events, to overcome resistance, and to convince people to do things that they would not do otherwise.” (Pfeffer, 1992. p.29). Power in organisational can be broken into bases of power. These bases of power are able to be grouped into two general labels - formal and personal. It is the aim of this essay to identify, describe and differentiate the bases of power, as well as analogise the use of power by managers in an organisational setting accompanied with examples. To do this, this essay will firstly address the bases of power as well as the two general labels; followed by describing and differentiating between the bases under their respective label. Next this essay will demonstrate the use of power by managers in an organisation, and finally the six bases of power will be applied to managers through examples.

The various bases of power, as identified by French and Raven, are reward, coercion, legitimate, expert, referent and informational. The last of these six bases, informational, was originally extracted from the bases expert. (Raven, B. H. 1993.) As stated before, these bases of power are grouped into two categories – formal and personal. The formal bases of power include: coercion, reward, legitimate, and information. Therefore both expert and referent are categorised as personal. Personal power originates from an “individual’s unique characteristic,” (Answers.com. 2014) which can otherwise be referred to as being reflective on the individual in power to their personality and mentality towards influencing others. Formal power can come from the ability to “coerce or reward, from formal authority, or from control of information.” (An...

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...12. Influence of Power Bases on Leadership Strategies Adopted by Managers’ in Information Technology Organizations. European Journal of Business and Management, 4 (11), pp. 101--108. Accessed from: [Accessed on: 18th Mar 2014].
Pfeffer, J. 1992. Managing with power. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.
Pfeffer, J. 1992. Understanding power in organizations. California Management Review, 34 (2), pp. 29--50. Accessed from: [Accessed on: 3rd Mar 2014].
Raven, B. H. 1993. The bases of power: Origins and recent developments. Journal of Social issues, 49 (4), pp. 227--251. Accessed from: DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1993.tb01191.

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