Leadership and Power
I have always been curious to understand what comes first- power or leadership. Can you lead without power? Or can you have power without leadership? It is similar to the well-known chicken or egg parable. What is more important to possess in life? And why? Two simple questions with vastly different answers, depending on your goals.
Leadership has many definitions, written over centuries of its study. The one I understood the most to be true to my perception of its definition of leadership is: a process whereby an individual influence a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. (Northouse, L 1 p. 2, 2016)
. There are many types of leaderships, including assigned and emergent leadership. I believe there is no truer form of leadership than an emergent leadership, where it is your skills, knowledge, and hard work that gains everyone’s respect. An assigned leadership sometimes can produce an implication that you are there, not because of your hard work, but for your last name, or the people you know. Leadership, then, is only meaningful when it is gained, not handed down.
Power, by its definition, is “the ability to act or produce an effect; a possession of control, authority, or influence over others.” (Merriam Webster,2020). The six bases of power are: “referent, expert, legitimate, reward, coercive, and information power.” ((Northouse, L 1 p. 12, 2016)
. Referent and expert power, being a personal power style influence are the ones I consider more valuable. They are defined as “identification and liking for the leader, and competence.” (Northouse, L 1 p. 9, 2016). Even Kellerman states that the playing field between leadership and followers have been evened out based on technology and information. A new source of power is being valued, and it is intrinsic to understand its worth and where it is heading.
If one understands power and leadership, and their value, like I do, the answer is simple: leadership comes first, followed by power. Why? In order to obtain personal power, the ability to produce an effect, one has to prove they have the skills and knowledge necessary to produce “it”. That only comes from a great leadership; an opportunity to show your team, followers, coworkers, what you are made of. Which is more important to possess in life? Both. Why? You can’t be a good leader, having all the skills, if you don’t know how to canalize it. And you can´t have power and its effect on others, if you don´t have the necessary skillset. One must aim for power, through emergent leadership.
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Management. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved May 20, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/management
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership Theory and Practice, Seventh Edition. Chapters 1 & 2. Sage Publications.
daa5405 says
Kristina,
After reading your blog post and then reading David’s comment, I have to say, I do agree with you on some aspects but I can definitely see where he is coming from when he says that the parable of the chicken and the egg is not similar to power and leadership. I agree with you on that the definition of leadership to me specifically is that leadership is a process whereby an individual influence a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.
While I would like to agree that in order to have power you need to be a great leader and that leadership comes first before power, David’s comment on the leader of North Korea is a prime example of how this is untrue and I am sure there are many circumstances where this can be proven to be wrong again. For example, a few summers ago I worked at a job where my manager was a complete nut-job and I would definitely say that he did not practice good leadership skills at all whatsoever. It led to a chaotic workplace setting 75% of the time and it was so easy for any of us employees to think of any possible tiny details we could change to make what we were doing more effective. To help you imagine: I worked at a country club restaurant where there would be 8 of us on the schedule on a day where it was raining and no one was coming to the club anyways so we would sit around and do nothing and then on days where it was extremely busy like weekends and holidays there were ONLY 8 of us to do all of the work at the restaurant and throughout they day they would bring some of us up to serve the events like holiday parties and weddings up top. Basically what I’m trying to say is, we needed more staff on schedule on the weekends and less on the rainy days, yet he would never alter the schedule to suit our needs. My point is that while he had the power and could control what we did down there, he was clearly and inevitably a terrible leader.
So overall, if anything, I think that while it would be ideal for leadership to come before power, unfortunately many people in leadership positions do hold the power, but they do a pretty terrible job at leading.
David Turner says
I disagree with your stance on leadership completely. There are plenty of instances where assigned leadership works just fine. For instance, I am a manager at a privately held company valued at $7B. What does this mean, it means that the family will always hold the power, no one will ever be able to take that from them, like the mob. So right now the grandfather is the chairman, the son is the CEO and the eldest grandson is in college and is the future CEO. This works just fine, because of the expectation of the grandson set by his father and grandfather. These male heirs will be groomed and trained to be good leaders before the crown is passed and not a second too soon.
This may be a bit of devil’s advocate but the chicken or the egg parable is applicable but not always true with leadership and power. The “leader” of North Korea for instance, is incredibly powerful, he has an entire country at his disposal. But he is a terrible leader, and I don’t think he loses sleep over that at all. Communism specifically seems to be riddled with individuals that were power hungry and would risk everything in order to become powerful, and most of the time it worked. Fear is a powerful motivator, perhaps the most powerful motivator, if you can instill it, you can seize power without ever proving anything.