Evaluating French And Raven’s Social Bases Of Power In Leadership: An Essay.

Drawing on two of the leadership models (skills, styles, leader-member-exchange, team leadership) discussed  in class critically evaluate how an individual may make use of French and Raven’s social bases of power when undertaking leadership. Within your answer consider how an individual’s choice to adopt bases of power should be determined by the following contextual factors:

• The power of the influencer (agent)
• The characteristics/propensities of the person influenced (target)
• Length (or desired length) of the leader-follower relationship
• Perceptions of other people who may observe the leader-follower relationship (third parties)
• The kind of organisation that is being considered (organisational context)
• How might the person being influenced think and feel about the person who is attempting to influence them (targets future perceptions of the agent)
• Targets/agents position within a given organisational hierarchy

Power and Influence

The concept of leadership is primarily based on a person or in some cases a group of people who have actively taken on the post of assistance provided to others with the help of motivation, effective decision making as well as a strong level of commitment to promote any kind of change. Leaders are also considered as one of the important success in management of companies. At the time of setting objectives, a leader which is effective have a clear base in terms of direction and delegated the team against any accomplishment. It is also important to understand here that the concept of leadership as well as motivation may change or vary from one person to another and it is important for the manager to understand the concept of leadership, specifically how the concept of leadership may impact nations as well as workplace. At the same time followership is a work used to define the work of someone in a role of a subordinate (Beveridge, 2013). The concept of followership is becoming a trending concept within the leadership area that assist in explaining the results. Particularly followers play a vital role for people as well as collective roles in company’s successes and failure. Based on two leadership models which are primarily based on skills, styles, leadership of the team as well as the exchange between leader and member, the report will discuss in detail about how people make use of power while performing their leadership functions.

It is important to note here that owning power and implementing it are two distinct things. For instance, imagine when a manager who has the power to reward as well as punish the workforce. The manager can make a request where he or she will mostly be obeyed even when the manager does not reward the workforce (Jia et al, 2015).

The word power in the work environment has conventionally defined as force or a dominance in the form of assertiveness, authority and strength. As people often observe other people to rise to higher standards defined in leadership, a common question often asked which is how do they do it? The analysis can address to a conclusion which says that the most dominant can make it to the top as well and the basic rule is to rise to the position of leadership which helps in bringing the play into behaviour based on forces, aggression as well as strength. But the concept of power and leadership must be defined again and again. In today’s time, it is important to understand that nobody is comfortable equating the force with leadership or the power with dominance (Jia et al, 2015). In many modern corporations, power is moving from the concept of I or myself to us. This kind of change obviously needs a high level of commitment as well as ideal plan of action.

Positional power sources

On the other hand, the concept of influence has a range which goes from authoritative to dominant and to the more significant and crucial concepts. At one side, it can be defined as influential since there is an existence of fear and on the other end, it is the case of influential because of identified significance and contribution to the higher good. To be part of an important concept and to be able to be in position to identify talent is becoming a challenge.

Following is the detailed discussion of French and Raven’s bases of power divided into two groups which are positional and personal: -

• • Legitimate: it is important to understand that a prime minister, or a president has the legitimate power. Thus, people like a CEO or a religious minister and many more come under it. Elements like electoral mandates, culture based norms and structure of organization, all provide the base for legitimate power. This kind of power thus can be very unstable or unpredictable by nature (Jia et al, 2015).
  • Reward based power: in this, individuals who are in power are usually able to give rewards. It covers elements like promotions, raises, assignment and many training options. When people expect that they will be rewarded for doing what one want, there is high possibility that they will be able to do it. The issue with the concept is that it cannot be as strong as it is perceived.
  • Coercive power: this kind of power is also not very ideal and can come under abuse. It further causes a lot of dissatisfaction among people it implemented to. There are so many threats as well as punishment that are common under coercive tools. One must use this power when one implies or get threaten that some person can be fired or denied any kind of privileges (Reich & Lebow, 2014).
  • Informational power: this power means to have control over data that other requires or want that can put an individual in a powerful place. To have access which is confidential by nature and being aware because it is laid off and knowing where the team is going for its yearly off are all kind of example of informational power.

Depending on positional kind of power only can lead to a cold, improvised and technocratic form of leadership. To become a true leader, one requires to have a more robust kind of source based on power that an ability to reward for any kind of punishment or accessibility to data (Al-Merbati et al, 2013).

• Expert power: when an individual has knowledge or skills that helps people to gain clarity on a situation and suggest outcomes with solid kind of judgement and normally can outperform other, people in general will listen, trust and respect that individual.
• Referent power: this kind of power comes from one individual liking as well as respect for other and recognizing with them in some manner. Celebrities have the referent power; thus, one can impact everything from what people can buy to which politician to select. A work environment and an individual with referent power usually make everyone feel better thus he usually tend to have a lot of impact (Al-Merbati et al, 2013).

These approaches are very similar by nature and yet opposite. They are similar since both the concept focuses on the significance of situation and they are completely opposite since they hold distinct set of expectations on leaders. The situational approach also based on a belief that a leader must adapt to the situation as well as contingency theory is based on a belief that the ideal leader must match the right kind of situation.

The theory of Fielder sometimes lack flexibility since it is believed that leaders are naturally fixed in how a situation can be handled and in case people wants to change how the case is taken care off. For this one need to be a leader. In this case for many leaders, who fall under or in the middle of LPC scale, it cannot be clear which type of leader they are (Al-Merbati et al, 2013). Since flexibility is lacking in the leadership style, it can be treated as a disadvantage.

The truth is that all leaders have the behaviour based tendency which cannot be changed and natural for them. For instance, a high school teacher has a degree of PhD in chemistry and ten years and above experience of teaching the subject science. During the senior year, he was elected as the faculty of school, to perform the part of supervisor in senior classes since the person in the role has recently resigned.  The new role for was expected to be a cake walk since he was smart as well as efficient. Previously, the person was efficient in teaching, this new job was not the ideal one for which he was trained or was preparing to handle. In some time, subordinates were not very satisfied with the style of management and as an outcome, attendance rates at the meeting started to diminish (Jin et al, 2013).

Personal power sources

James McGregor who was leadership expert introduced this concept of leadership. The process of transformational leadership can be defined as a procedure where leaders as well as the followers tries to raise each other to high level of motivation and morality.  It was later defined and developed further. Following are some of the common traits of such leaders: -

1. Set goals which are clear
2. Is based on a model of fairness as well as integrity
3. Has high level of expectations
4. Provided much needed recognition and support
5. Be able to stir the emotions of the people

The concept of the leadership as discussed is a process where a person influences a group of people to accomplish the set target. There is time when leading a group of people may need different kind of attitude as well as styles depending on the case, task, followers and structure with followers need (Barr, 2014). There is a belief in situational theory that leadership based effectiveness is dependent on the ability of a leader to impact the follower in many work cultures. but, not all kind of situation leadership techniques based on assumption that behaviour of the leader can change, and all the leaders can be impactful in all the cases.

The concept of contingency theory further argues that leaders have a dominating position for behaviour based tendencies and specific cases where they can be effective than other, but such theory has received criticism in past many years. The major issues are that there is low level of flexibility and it also fails to discuss what company should do if there was any kind of mismatch existing between the situation or the leader. It is also recommended that a company must train the manager who are not able to adapt to other leadership styles with a more theory of flexibility like path-goal theory (Whetten & Cameron, 2014).

The theory also suggests that the leaders are most impactful when there is any kind of dominant style that can be matched in any right case. The theory framework initiates with a leadership style using evaluation based on Fielder’s less preferred co-worker also known as LPC scale.  The high amount of LPC spectrum discusses an association that encouraged leadership style and the low level of LPC spectrum showing a task motivated style. After all the analysis, the next phase further unfolds the case based on three important factors which are leader-member association, structure of the task and position based power. In the first stage, a good or ideal leader member relationship consist of high confidence along with trust and loyalty whereas the complete opposite association can consist of friction and unpleasant interactions. The next evaluation is based on task structure which changes depending on the level of task needs and showing clarity and the number of solutions and options. For instance, a production job is to pack the product in a box comes under high task structure since the manager can give set of instruction and show with some options as well as answers. On the contrary, a manager must lead many consultants on so many complicated projects that can have less control on every task (Simons, 2015). The case also has a low level of task structure. The third important factor is featuring a leader based on legitimate power to function punishment or rewards. The strong position of power possessed by leader has the high level of authority based on which one can make a crucial decision like firing or promoting the employees.

Models

The concept of contingency theory is limited to an individual leadership style to a case which is quite inflexible by nature. In case when the leader is mismatch with a wrong case, the leadership will not be very effective due to anxiety, stress and reaction which is immature. It is unfortunate but true that a situation can change in an organization after every fixed interval of time and it is unlikely that a company is able to afford to hire a new leader when situation varies. For instance, a small factory in rural part of US, covers three trusted task encouraged shift executives. The lead member is positive, but the tasks are structured highly, and every member has an authority which is strong by nature (Simons, 2015). Everything functioned in smooth manner for many years. Because the new leader in the form of president has been elected and there was conflict between the minority employees and white because of the new administration based policies in immigration. The conflict with the workers restricts the productivity as well as cooperation and as the member-leader association diminished, while the other two factors remained the same, the case further becomes favourable in moderate manner. It now need associations which have motivated the leaders to smooth the anxiety of the members however, it is not possible to hire or train the new managers. The contingency theory here actually failed to give any outcomes for how to improve or change leaders attitude in many evolving situations (Simons, 2015).

In case of transformation leadership, the concept as discussed is based on how an individual who can function the company and the people working for the company towards a greater work and well. The concept of transformational leaders has ability to change the shape of the power and influence. The influence ensures that the followers finishes more than the usual expectation which is way above or beyond the basic mentality. The overall power is provided to followers where they can be encouraged to increase the condition while feeling significant to the company on every level. There are number of factors that must be in a position for transformational leadership to happen. The concept of idealized influence can be part of an emotional level where leaders uses the power as followers and role models to strongly look up to them and wants to become that person (Simons, 2015). The standard or the level builds on many factors like trust and people in all stages of the company need to be able to show some belief in the leader. A parallel to have some belief in the system of integrity.

Contingency and situational approaches

Inspiration based motivation can be developed by the leader that impact the followers to see the vision functioning and taking company ahead. A leader also requires inspiring in right manner via emotional appeal or symbols and where they are inspired enough to accomplish more than expected than they were thought of being capable. The level of inspiration that can be promoted by any leader will give the team an ideal kind of reinforcement where one is able to accomplish many great things. Impacting team by using intellectual kind of stimulation many times unlock the creativity of the team and to be more innovative and further take it as a challenge (Sova et al, 2017). Challenge can be based on specific set of values related to leader’s features and the company final goals. A person with creative power influence can have a thought process in a strategic manner and show high level of creativity at the time of tasks and company issues that can take place. This permits the follower to have a thought process on using their own strengths and the ability to develop and take decision that can impact the team and the company (Richardson & Mazey, 2015). This further leads to many uncharted waters of developing new as well as innovative ideas.

Conclusion:

At the time of hiring any leader with style of leadership for specific jobs will only be in a sustainable position if the situation can never be changed. As discussed before, people and situation can change in swift and usual manner and when there is change in situation, the abilities of the leader and skill will immediately remain ineffective and this can restrict the productivity and satisfaction of leaders. On the contrary, the power and influence also focuses on the leader who can adapt one or sometime more kind of styles of leadership at any point based on the situation need and subordinates demands (Richardson & Mazey, 2015). The approach taken by the leaders must be versatile that increases the leader’s effectiveness in most cases. It is important for the leaders to become comfortable with power since leader who feel uncomfortable with the concept power are those who signals out in unconscious manner.

Reference:

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