Introduction:
The definition of a leader is not attributed to a formal position of leadership or others’ perception of an individual as a leader. One of the most effective definitions of leadership could be identified in the ability to induce positive change thereby benefitting other individuals, the society, and the community. It is also essential to consider that leadership is not limited to the characteristics of a person who can induce positive change but also to the capabilities to promote collaborative relationships that facilitate opportunities for collective action based on the shared values of a group of individuals (Cartwright, 1965). Therefore leadership can be identified as the ability to direct a particular group of individuals to accomplish positive change. Some of the essential traits of good leadership could be identified in inspiration for a shared vision, challenging attitude toward conventional processes, initiating action from others, recognition of efforts of other individuals, and the capabilities for creating benchmarks in relevant activities and standards for the treatment of people (Hollander & Offermann, 1990).
Followership has always been perceived in a negative tone by the general audience because leaders could not exist without anyone to follow them. The definition of followership illustrates the willingness of an individual to work cooperatively in a group setting to achieve the objective of the group alongside depicting the necessary traits of higher involvement in teamwork. As to Haslam, Reicher & Platow (2010), Followership also implies the requirements for building cohesion within the group that can be supported by the traits of communication skills, patience, and cooperation (Haslam, Reicher & Platow, 2010).
The scope of the essay is directed towards explaining the role of bases of power while opting for a specific leadership model. The concluding section of the essay would illustrate the effectiveness of bases of power in the choices of an individual to exercise power and influence.
Power and influence:
Apprehending the definitions of leadership and followership provides indications of the necessity of power in the roles of leadership for guiding the followers to accomplish the desired objectives. Power can be generically defined as the capabilities of an individual to influence other individuals for carrying out specific tasks or execute other tasks that the latter would not have done otherwise (Krause, 2004). Some other illustration of power in literature also reflects on the possibilities of the ability of an individual in an organization to accomplish assigned goals or the outcomes intended by power holders in the organization. Therefore, the common element of accomplishing the desired goals could be ascertained in the definitions of power. In an organizational context power is the ability for influencing other individuals in the organization to accomplish the desired outcomes.
According to Leadership and Followership (2017), the potential power of an individual in an organization is determined by the elements of politics and influence. This is where the definition of influence could be expanded to recognize the effect of a person’s actions on the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of other individuals in the organization. So considering power as the capability of an individual to bring change in an individual, influence can be perceived in the degree of change identified in the actual sense. Categorization of power could also facilitate comprehensive insights into the implications of hard and soft power (Leadership and Followership, 2017). The hard power of an individual could be considered as an attribute of the position or authority of the person in the organization.
The examples of hard power could be recognized in the role of a supervisor in influencing subordinates through the use of punishments and rewards or the power of a manager to issue orders and expect compliance from all members of the organization. The distinct forms of power that are classified as hard power include coercive, legitimate, and reward power that is determined through the precedents highlighted in the policies and procedures of the organization (Mendenhall et al., 2017).
On the contrary, soft power is perceived with a formidable association with interpersonal relationships and personal characteristics as compared to a position of authority to exercise influence. The example of the CEO of General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt, preferring exercise of soft power in the majority of business activities for influencing people in the organization only with the indication of him exercising his authority only seven to eight times annually could be presented here as a validation of soft power’s efficiency.
The bases of power highlighted by Frank and Raven include informational power, reward power, coercive power, expert power, referent power, and legitimate power. These bases of power are reflective of potential opportunities for leaders to perceive their situation and apply relevant leadership approaches with the needed levels of influence. The individual bases of power are directed towards generating variable outcomes which have to be illustrated comprehensively as follows.
Informational power is intended to develop socially independent change wherein the leader is required to provide a clear explanation to the subordinates and persuasive reasons that would improve the effectiveness of specific organizational procedures. Informational power is responsible for inducing cognitive change that can be promoted without the explicit involvement of the initiator i.e. the leader. Legitimate power is considered an outcome of the authority due to the formal position of an individual in an organization (Northouse, 2015).
The CEO of an organization could be considered an example of a legitimate power holder. Coercive power is defined as the authority exercised on the grounds of fear of punishment or recommendations for punishment. As per Bosman (2017), the right of managers and supervisors to promote or fire subordinates could be considered an example of coercive power. Expert power is obtained from the specific knowledge of a leader and their skills concerning the tasks that should be completed by followers. The examples of expert power can be observed in the case of production plant supervisors that have considerably effective knowledge regarding the production process (Bosman, 2017).
Referent power is also another base of power that reflects on the personality characteristics of leaders that can draw respect, identification, and admiration from followers. The example of Apple CEO Steve Jobs could be considered a referent power. Reward power is identified in the exercise of generic leadership by providing rewards for followers that can accomplish team objectives effectively.
Models:
The leadership models have presented formidable indications towards understanding the approaches that can be followed by leaders for guiding followers and accomplishing the desired objectives. The first model to be considered in this essay includes the skills model of leadership which was presented with the desired interpretation of the qualities of an effective leader. The skills leadership model could be defined as a system that describes the relationship between the competencies and knowledge of a leader and their performance. Leadership capabilities presented in this model could be earned over many years of experience and education that are also responsible for inducing possibilities for effective leadership (Vecchio, 2007).
The working of the model could be explained on the grounds of the five components involved in the form of individual attributes, leadership outcomes, environmental influences, competencies, and career experiences. The four components include references towards general cognitive ability, crystallized cognitive ability, personality, and motivation. Each of the individual components is categorized into different underlying aspects that would facilitate clear insights into the skill model of leadership. The dimension of competencies in the skill model is reflective of the problem-solving skills of an individual apart from their competencies and knowledge of social justice. Problem-solving skills can be defined as major inputs for defining significant problems, collecting information about the problem, obtaining new interpretations of the problem, and developing prototypes for the resolution of problems. Social judgment skills could be identified in the capacity of a leader to understand human resources and social systems.
Leadership outcomes are considered significant skills of leaders since these are directed towards ascertaining the approaches for creating logical, unique, and effective solutions thereby influencing leadership performance (Russell & Gregory, 2002). Environmental influences are identified as another component of the skill model directing towards the factors vested in the situation of a leader other than the competencies, experiences, and characteristics of the leader. Some examples of environmental influences could be identified in the availability of technology or the complexity of tasks involved. Career experiences have also been recognized as an influential component in the skill model of leadership that is reflective of the impact of experience gained by leaders in the course of their career on the requirements of knowledge and skills required for addressing complex problems. The career experiences could be observed in examples of mentoring, professional training programs, and challenging job responsibilities.
Another model of leadership that has been considered for this essay is the style approach to leadership. The origin of the style approach to leadership could be identified in the transition of focus of researchers towards the identification of leadership behaviors as compared to traits. The style approach to leadership could, therefore, be defined as a systematic approach intended to reflect on the actions of leaders rather than focusing on their underlying characteristics.
The style approach emphasizes not only the actions of leaders but also the approaches in which they act (Raven, 2008). The working of the model could be based on an illustration of two distinct categories of leadership behavior such as task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership behavior and determining the approaches followed by leaders in integrating the two behavior types for obtaining desired outcomes. The different studies such as Ohio State Studies, Blake and Mouton’s leadership grid, and the University of Michigan study are intended to illustrate the style approached comprehensively.
Critical evaluation:
The use of Frank and Raven’s bases of power to explain how an individual could utilize power and influence through the two models can be presented distinctly for the individual leadership models. As per Russell & Gregory (2002), the models of leadership would have to be reviewed with explicit references to factors such as the power of the influencing agent, characteristics of the target group i.e. followers, length of leader-follower relationship, organizational context, perceptions of third parties, the perception of targets regarding the agent and the position of targets within a specific organizational hierarchy (Russell & Gregory, 2002).
First of all, the skill model of leadership would have to be reviewed in the form of the power of the influencing agent i.e. the leader. The power of the influencer in the case of the skills leadership model could be associated profoundly with expert and referent bases of power. The legitimate base of power could also be considered in the case of the skills model of leadership since the skills leadership approach is inclined towards utilizing the competencies and knowledge of an individual for accomplishing the set of goals and objectives.
The three skills approach which has been illustrated in the generic definition of skills models of leadership reflect profoundly on the technical, human, and conceptual skills. The use of the skills model would also imply that the characteristics of the target group would be largely associated with inferences that suggest the implications of limited technical expertise and lack of orientation in specific organizational activities. The extent to which the leader and follower could be about each other can be defined on the grounds of the duration of a specific project and referent power could be considered as a long-term impact on the leader-follower relationship.
The perception of third parties regarding the leader-follower relationship in the skills model could be based on the observation of leadership outcomes in response to the environmental influences (Leadership and Followership, 2017). The kind of organizations that can be considered concerning the skill model of leadership could be observed in the manufacturing industry, retail industry, education as well as health and social care industry. The organization should not have a formal hierarchical structure of management which could restrict the assignment of leadership responsibilities based on the competencies of an individual. However, the components of career experience in the case of the skills model could imply that people with substantial experience in the field could be appointed to top strata of management.
The use of expert and referent power in the case of the skills model of leadership suggests that the targets would be able to perceive the agent as a source of knowledge. Furthermore, the perception of targets could also be influenced by the specific attributes of the agent such as personal characteristics, attitudes, beliefs, and expertise. The perception of the referent power of leaders could be validated in the case of the skills model of leadership through presenting effective leadership outcomes and acquisition of competencies. The improvement of skills and competencies of targets could be identified as a significant characteristic that determines the perception of targets regarding the agents. As per Haslam, Reicher & Platow (2010), the skills approach to leadership could also be reflective of potential references towards competence improvement and career experiences that could improve the capabilities of a leader to exercise referent power. Some of the essential indications for the exercise of power and influence in a skill model of leadership are identified in the position of the target and agent in the organizational hierarchy (Haslam, Reicher & Platow, 2010).
The position of agent in the skills model could be based on expertise power that reflects on the allocation of leadership responsibilities to individuals with the appropriate technical expertise required for specific organizational activities. The indications towards the position of the target in the hierarchy could not be established as individuals in the strata of senior management could also be required to obtain training from qualified members of the lower management. However, the implications of expertise power and referent power are identified as the most productive bases of power that can enable leaders to obtain desired outcomes from their followers.
The concerns for the style approach to leadership are vested in consideration of task-related behavior and relationship-oriented behavior. Task-oriented behavior is identified comprehensively in the distinct elements of task analysis, objective development, goal setting, personal goal accomplishment, and accomplishing goals of targets. The relationship behaviors are aligned with the development of leader-follower relationships that are associated with implications of sustenance through explicit references to the elements of leaders, followers, and the task under concern.
The power of the influencer in the case of the style approach could be varied according to the preferences for task or relationship-oriented behavior. Task-oriented behavior would have to be supported through the indications of legitimate power, reward power, and coercive power to accomplish the desired outcomes. In relationship-oriented behavior, leaders could opt for applying reward power, expertise power, and referent power (Hollander & Offermann, 1990). The application of reward power by providing incentives for accomplishing specific tasks would enable the development of leadership styles favoring the involvement of people.
The use of expertise power would increase the possibilities of interaction between leaders and followers for the promotion of knowledge and competencies of the latter. This factor ensures that the followers are always perceptive of the leader’s involvement in their wellbeing. The use of referent power would also be reflective of substantial changes in the attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral aspects of followers which imply possibilities for the development of a favorable leadership style that would appeal to the people. The characteristics of the targets could be identified in the form of dedication, persistency, and dependability to realize the style model of leadership. The other necessary characteristics include communication skills and an amiable personality for promoting relationship-based behavior.
The implications of the use of legitimate power could be leveraged in unison with the application of expertise power to improve these characteristics in favor of the team. The length of the leader-follower relationship is an integral aspect of the style model of leadership since the relationship-based behavioral aspects are considerably associated with the development and sustenance of leader-follower relationships. The use of reward power, as well as referent power, could be considered effective elements for obtaining a higher duration of leader-follower relationships.
The application of coercive power would result in the authority compliance leadership style that the target would perceive about the agent. The use of a reward base of power solely can be reflective of a country club style while when it is implemented in moderation of legitimate power leads to a team manager style of leadership behavior (Northouse, 2015). The target group could also perceive a benevolent dictator according to the application of coercive and reward bases of power to create influence. Therefore the common element that could be identified in the case of the perception of the target group regarding the agent is the concerns of the leader for people and assigned tasks. The exercise of power and the relevant outcomes of influence could be tailored according to the required objectives. Finally, the position of the target and agents in the organizational hierarchy could be identified at all levels. The examples of departmental supervisors monitored by area managers who in turn are subject to the authority of senior executives of an organization could imply the variability of positions of targets and agents in an organizational hierarchy.
Conclusion:
The essay reflected comprehensively on the definitions of leadership and followership in the introductory section. The other important points which were illustrated in the essay include the emphasis on definitions of power and influence as well as an illustration of the bases of power proposed by French and Raven. The following section of the essay reflected comprehensively on the models of leadership such as the skills model and style model of leadership as well as their working. The inferences drawn from these sections of the essay were responsible for facilitating inputs for the critical evaluation of the application of bases of power in individual models of leadership to obtain productive use of power and influence in an organizational context.
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