You may already have come across a boss who abuses his power and you may have come across individuals who confuse job title with job description and who — in spite of their fine-sounding job title, find it difficult to exercise authority.
Corporate organisation is still largely based on the old military model. That is to say you have a general whose power is absolute at the top of the tree, with devolved power becoming weaker as it flows downwards.
The Samurai Management tradition in Japan still reflects the absolute power which was the norm a few thousand years ago but this type of absolute power — even the power of life and death over people — has gradually been watered down by the introduction of increasing layers of management.
This old-fashioned autocratic type of leadership persisted right up to the Industrial Revolution and reflected life in general. The feudal system of the time was reflected in contemporary management style. This was later translated by Douglas McGregor as Theory X type management.
That is not the case with the modern Theory Y manager who does not abuse power, does not treat people like ‘work units’ with an assumption that they are all intrinsically lazy and need to be bullied in order to perform. The Theory Y manager or leader believes that people derive job satisfaction and are better motivated by a job well done and praise rather than by bullying.
Unfortunately, although we assume that the old style of management has died out, there is a surprisingly large number of theory X managers left.
It was McGivering who identified the five types of power:
- Coercive Power is that which relies heavily upon all the negative aspects of power ranging from the power to reprimand, embarrass, dismiss etc. It is the old-fashioned theory X type management.
- Expert Power is exercised almost unconsciously by people who are good at what they do and are followed by subordinates purely because of their known ability or expertise.
- Reward Power relies on a leader’s ability to intervene on behalf of his staff in order to arrange or influence such things as promotion, increases in salary etc.
- Referent Power again can be the type of power which is not exercised because it is simply based on a subordinates desire to aspire to be like that person. For instance, someone like Bill Gates has referent power over thousands of people, because they admire him and listen to what he has to say.
- Legitimate Power is based on subordinates being in total agreement that an individual has power over them.
In fact, the ideal leader will have all of the above five qualities in balance.
Theodore Roosevelt defined the type of leadership which ticks most of the above boxes:
“Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
