Owning Your Professional Power
John 8:33, KJV: "They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?"
In a notable study conducted by social psychologists John R. P. French and Bertram Raven in 1959, power is divided into five separate and distinct forms. They identified those five bases of power as legitimate, coercive, reward, referent, and expert. This was followed by Raven's subsequent identification in 1965 of a sixth separate and distinct base of power: informational power.
Titular or Legitimate Power. From the Latin, titulus meaning "title"; a titular ruler, or titular head, is a person in an official position of leadership who possesses few, if any, actual powers. Sometimes a person may inhabit a position of titular leadership and yet exercise more power than would normally be expected, as a result of their personality or experience.
Coercive Power is the ability of a person to force the following of an order by threatening with punishment to comply with the order. The most important concept to understand about coercive power is that it uses the application of force to achieve the outcome.
Reward Power is the power to give some type of reward as a means to influence the desired action. Rewards can be tangible or intangible.
Referent Power is defined as the ability of a leader in influence a follower because of the follower's admiration, respect, or identification with the leader. Another way to define this power is that a follower will refer to what they think their leader would do, and do the same. Referent power is a form of reverence gained by a leader who has strong interpersonal relationship skills. Referent power, as an aspect of personal power, becomes particularly important as organizational leadership becomes increasingly about collaboration and influence, rather than command and control.
Expert Power is the perception that a certain person has an elevated level of knowledge or a specific skill set that others may not possess. This power provides leaders with a robust base from which they can manage people confidently.
Informational Power is a form of personal or collective power that is based on controlling information needed by others in order to reach an important goal. Our society is extraordinarily reliant on information power as knowledge for influence, decision making, credibility, and control.
-- but wait, just having the power isn't enough. The best leaders know that in order to build real, lasting power they must use that power to crystallize a strong organizational vision, eliminate obstacles for their teams and tell a compelling story to their executive stakeholders.
Acknowledging and owning your power is the first step. Knowing your value and being able to articulate it, comes next in helping you build your personal and professional platform. It also helps you excel every day as you follow your career path and achieve common business goals like effectively managing your team members, negotiating partnerships, or closing deals.
To be a key influencer with/without having a title, your colleagues and clients must respect you, see you being consistent and know they can count on you. You must be self-aware enough to know when you are out of your depth, and need additional expertise to help guide you. You must invest in your emotional health, so that you can be calm and centered and make well-thought out decisions. You must be interested in others, and willing to invest in your team - beyond just making sure they deliver the day to day tasks you ask for. You must schedule quiet time, to re-calibrate and indulge in important self-care activities. You must maintain a sustainable growth mindset, striving forward but content with where you are today. You must advocate, for yourself and for your team -- and you must declare your own power.
In every situation, there's an opportunity to see yourself as being a leader and you always have a great opportunity to make an impact, even if you don't have a seat in the boardroom.
#LeadStrong