This week’s reading takes us into the different types of powers associated with leaders. Each example of expert, referent, legitimate, reward, and coercive power were covered not only in our online course, but also in the textbook Leadership: Theory and Practice (Northouse 2015). I want to focus on the two that are probably used the most in a negative way, I am referring to reward power and coercive power. These two types of “leadership” powers are often used by individuals in positions of leadership to coerce their employees into completing tasks that may not focus completely on the overall organizational goal, but are done for the benefit of making the leader look better or out of convenience for the leader.
Reward power “involves the potential to influence others due to one’s control over desired resources. Someone with reward power can give raises, bonuses, promotions, can distribute parking spaces, or can grant tenure.” (Hughes, 1993) This power often may produce compliance by subordinates in anticipation of receiving rewards but does not have much commitment from the employee long-term. Initially, some may think, “Well the task got completed, so what’s the problem?” The problem with why, in my eyes, this type of power is used negatively is because the long-term goals of the company will never be met fully by leadership and its’ employees. When a company has complete “buy-in” from its leadership all the way down to its’ lowest employee success is extremely possible. However, when an employee isn’t committed to making the organization the best that it can on a consistent basis, how will the company get any better? From a leadership perspective, in my opinion this is management not leadership. All the “leader” is doing is shaping an employees response time for mission accomplishment based on incentive-laden tasks. This is not leadership.
Coercive power “is the opposite of reward power. It is the ability to control others through the fear of punishment or the loss of valued outcomes.” (Hughes, 1993) Now I know by the cited definition it says it is the opposite of reward power, but in my opinion “leaders” use this in similar fashion. Instead of saying, “If you do this job, you can have this,” they say, “If you don’t do this job, you won’t get this.” So my interpretation is varied in the sense that rewards says, “you get this” and coercive says, “you don’t get this.” Again, this is not what I would call “leading your employees,” this is what I would call managing your assets. I use the term assets not to demean the employee but more than likely how an individual in this “leader” mindset sees them, valuable “persons” that can help them benefit from mission accomplishment.
Understanding that I have used the term manager to replace leader thus far, I want to reference back to what was originally discussed about being a leader and that was power and influence. Power is defined in our course module as “the capacity to produce effects on others, (House, 1984) or the potential to influence others. (Bass, 1990)” Influence is defined as “the change in a target agent’s attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors as a result of influence tactics.” (PSU WC, 2017) It also takes influence a step further and defines influence tactics which are “one person’s actual behaviors designed to change another person’s attitudes, beliefs, values, or behaviors.” (PSU WC, 2017) The combination of power, influence, and influence tactics are what makes someone capable of not only leading, but leading successfully. They can combine the opportunity to grasp the room’s attention and then use their own influence to huddle the masses and motivate them to follow them. There is no hidden agenda, eye for an eye, or some demented reason to have followers complete a required task, it is purely for the overall task of mission accomplishment and meeting organizational objectives. Over time, leaders that combine those three things will allow others to see their capabilities as a leader and will willingly jump on board. This allows those other powers to be had by those successful few, expert, referent, and legitimate power. Individuals attempting to utilize reward and coercive power will never be able to realize fully what it means to be a leader because they will always have the “what’s in it for me” mentality and not the “what’s best for the organization or my employees” mentality.
References:
https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1834747/modules/items/21827889
Hughes, R. Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience. Homewood, IL. Irwin. 1993. 0256102783. Ch. 5. pp. 107-131.