Leadership in Organizations

Kerr and Jermier: where substitutes are sufficiently well developed, leadership in the
formal sense could be completely discounted.
An inexperienced, ill-informed leader could neutralize the best laid organizational plans.
Chapter 13 Power, influence, and authority
Power: the absolute capacity of an individual agent to influence the behaviour or
attitudes of one or more designated target persons at a given point in time (Yukl, 2010).
Power: the capacity or potential to influence (Northouse, 2010).
- Power and influence are not the same. Power is the force behind the ability to
influence.
Three choices of followers when leader has power:
1. Commitment: follower will do their best to ensure the task is completed,
demonstrating enthusiasm and pride in their work.
2. Compliance: follower will do as they have been instructed, because they
recognize the legitimacy of the command. Minimal amount of effort.
3. Resistance: follower rejects the order.
Types of power (French & Raven, 1959)
• Legitimate power: perceived authority (hierarchy).
o Scope of power associated with the role: if the instruction is outside the
scope of de leader’s role, the instruction is unlikely to be seen as
legitimate.
o If the person loses or changes role, their legitimate power disappears to.
• Coercive power: punishment or withholding benefits from the follower. Doesn’t
have to be carried out, the follower must perceive this to be the case. The target
must believe the agent has the capacity and will to carry out the threat.
• Reward power: agent (leader) has the perceived ability to control a resource
valued by the target (follower). Target must believe that agent has the capacity
and willingness to carry through their promise. ‘If you do this for me, I’ll do that
for you’.
• Expert power: knowledge is power. The target must believe the agent to be
credible and trustworthy.
• Referent power: individuals seeking to please others they feed attracted to, so
that they believe that by doing something for them, they will get something in
return (not money, but psychological rewards). Being influenced by others you
admire (buying perfume from a cool person, they think others are going to see
them as ‘cool’).
o A leader who does not deliver against the promise, will lose referent
power.
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