What makes a leader more successful? Is it their level or power, or their ability to influence? Are these concepts the same, or different? I would assume a powerful person is someone who has the ability to influence, and expect an influencer to hold a great amount of power, but there are subtle differences that should be addressed.
Here are some examples to explain these. A person can be endowed with a great amount of power, such as a captain of a ship; who has gained experience and acquired a position of responsibility and influence. However, if the sailors on the ship do not respect or agree with the captain, a mutiny will occur and so the power will yield no influence. On the flip side, an individual like Nelson Mandela, who was stripped of all power and rights of citizenship when imprisoned in South Africa held an enormous amount of influence over people in his nation. So which is more important? To have power or to have influence?
Power is characterized as the ability to influence others – to have an effect on them; their thoughts and behaviors; so defined by Bernard M. Bass. So we can reassess Mandela’s and the Captain’s situations and reverse them. Mandela had a great deal of power because he was influential, and our Captain had no influence and so no power. So although these are different constructs, they can in fact be interchangeable when it relates to leadership success. How can we use this to our advantage in our lives, can we become more powerful by being more influential?
Beyond going to medical school to become a doctor, or going through law school to become a judge, we can also join the police force or traffic enforcement bureaus to gain power. What do these roles of power have in common? They all wear uniforms. Research has been found that people who wear uniforms have a stronger level of influence over those who do not (PSU, 2014). For example, conducting a research experiment can be more successful and gain more compliance from participants if the administrator wears a white coat. Another example is the ‘power suit’; an individual wearing a dress suit rather than jeans and a t-shirt will be viewed as more intelligent and powerful by a casual observer.
Other ways to gain power are to assert social influence; by becoming an expert in a field of study or skill, by working your way up through a corporate ladder, or to reward behavior that matches the sought response.
Ultimately what seems to drive and result in good leadership is the careful and balanced use of power position and gentle influential rather than dictatorial style. Followers still have a choice in how much power to grant to their leader and how much they will respond to influence, and so the leader who can manage both type of power and communication of influence will be successful.
Reference
Pennsylvania State University (2014), Psychology 485, Leadership in Work Settings. Lesson 7, Power and Influence. Online.