Here Are the 10 Sources of Power – How To Use Them to Your Advantage
Learning to recognize them is essential.
Power is something that many people have always dreamed of. From a very young age, the image of the leader running his company or a team of employees is shown to you as an example. It ends up becoming a goal in itself for many people.
When you ask high school students what they want to be when they grow up, many will spontaneously answer:
“I want to be a leader.”
Many people end up thinking that simply having the title of leader gives you power over the people you are supposed to lead. But the real power is not decreed in an organization. A title is not enough to make you a true leader.
To become a true leader, someone who is respected and listened to by his or her colleagues, you must first recognize the 10 sources of power. Once you have reached this stage of knowledge, you will be able to take advantage of them in your life.
I present them to you in the following.
Legitimate power
This power is the one that everyone knows. It is the power obtained through status or title. You are appointed to lead a team in your company. You have legitimate power.
Those who limit themselves to this source of power will not be recognized as leaders of their team.
Indeed, the title is not enough. You must take advantage of this legitimate power to go further by trying to obtain a power of reward, but also a coercive power. This will give more weight to your actions.
Reward power
You can be the leader of a team but have no latitude to reward your employees. Reward power is essential. Once you are legitimately installed in a team leadership role in an organization, you must seek reward power.
Ask to be able to choose who you hire on your team, promote, or raise.
Reward power will reinforce your legitimate power since the people on your team will have a vested interest in following your guidelines to get the rewards you can give for those who work in the way you deem fit.
Coercive power
If you can reward your employees, you must seek the complementary power of coercion. This power will give you the ability to punish employees who refuse to recognize your legitimate authority.
This can range from simple reprimands to dismissals to suspensions, for example.
Of course, it is never a good thing if your employees are afraid of you. The power of coercion is to be used as a last resort with employees who cross the line of what you have defined.
Nevertheless, having this weapon on your side is a definite advantage in establishing your authority. Just knowing that you can use it will make even the most recalcitrant employees think twice about your legitimate power.
Expert power
In the professional world, you've met experts in a field. When they speak, everyone else shuts up and listens. These people have the power of the expert.
Their level of expertise leads to respect from everyone.
Everyone seeks to learn as much as possible from these experts. I take the example of the IT development world. In complex projects, there is always an expert in the field on which the team is working.
This expert is listened to by everyone because he is the one who brings the knowledge. He has power as an authority in his field. A person with expert power who is appointed leader of a team will have a much easier time getting respect for his or her legitimate power.
Referent power
We all meet people with incredible charisma. These people attract everyone's attention. Everyone listens to these people without them being experts.
They have the referent power.
The admiration that others have for them allows them to have this special status. An expert who also has this power of reference will be even more powerful in an organization. Everything he says will carry even more weight.
It is a combination of competence and charisma.
Informational power
A person with expert power will have expertise in one or more given areas. Someone with informational power has that level of expertise but is geared towards the organization you work in.
I'm sure you've met such a person who knows everything about everything in the company. They know who to go through to speed up decisions, for example.
It is in your best interest to quickly identify the person(s) with this informational power so that you can make an ally out of them. If you make an enemy of them, you will have a hard time getting ahead in the organization you are in.
Network power
To be successful, everyone now agrees that you need to develop a good network around you. It is crucial to have access to the right people at the right time.
The person who has an extensive network of connections has enormous power.
He can put it to work for other people. Connecting the right people at the right time has become a real skill. Some people make it their job.
Throughout your life, you should seek out relationships with people in your field, but also beyond. Do it without any ulterior motive by doing a service yourself. When the time comes, you will benefit from it.
Centrality power
This power is the power that some people or organizations have to be at the center of everything that happens. This can be both physical and organizational.
A person through whom everything must pass necessarily has a strong power over the rest of an organization.
Even if people don't have strong power as such, the mere fact that they are a conduit for all the channels in the company makes their role crucial. You can seek to develop this power.
If you're not interested in that power, you absolutely must recognize the people with it and make them your allies. Again, this is crucial.
Framing power
It is a language skill. It is the power to use language to your advantage to influence the way others see things.
Salespeople have a vested interest in developing framing power.
Within a company, you also have an interest in developing this power whether you are a leader or not. This will allow you to get others to agree with your ideas more easily.
When you want to convince, it is a key power to develop.
Agenda power
Whoever masters the laws of time has enormous power in business and politics. A good example can be seen in the monetary and financial system with the enormous power that the U.S. Federal Reserve has.
Everyone is waiting for the interventions of Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Fed.
It is Jerome Powell who determines what the economic priorities are and how the markets should act next. When he says the Fed is going to raise interest rates, everyone knows to get ready to get out of the stock market. When the Fed says they're going to lower interest rates, everybody knows that they're going to have to do the opposite.
The Fed has this power to control time and events.
It is up to you to use these sources of power to your advantage
No one can possess all of these powers simultaneously. On the other hand, you do have some powers that become stronger when possessed simultaneously. This is the case for legitimate, reward, and coercive powers.
For the others, the goal is often to identify people or organizations with these sources of power to make them your allies.
It is a way to strengthen the powers at your disposal while also putting your power at the service of others. For a company or organization to function properly, each person must be able to find his or her place based on the sources of power that he or she has developed over time.
By knowing how to recognize these sources of power, you will have an advantage over the majority of people. It is up to you to make good use of them.
Some reading
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