Leadership Theories, Methods, and Tools - Essay Example

Leadership Aspects Module Reward Power The base of power used in the first scenario entails reward power. Reward power involves the ability of organization to influence workers to improve performance by use of rewards or incentives. The rewards may include incentives like promotion, salary increase, bonuses and positive appraisals that are used to motivate the employees to improve the performance of the company (Turner, 2010). According to the scenario, employee 1 has worked for corporation A for 12 years and during those years the company has been issuing large bonuses for employees who have a superior rating on their performance at work. This requires that an employee has to work hard in the organization and create more hours especially in the evening or during weekends to improve his work rating and increase the chance of earning bonuses. Employee 1 has been working on weekends and late in the evening to ensure that work is accurate and complete. The manager of the organization encourages the employees to possibly work for more than 40 hours per week as they would receive a huge bonus and this reveal that the manager uses bonus as an incentive to motivate workers to upgrade the performance of the company. Power based on rewards entails equality without favoritism and thus employees work hard to achieve desirable results and thus raising performance for the company. Expert Power In the second scenario, the base of power applied involves expert power. Expert power is based on the fact that knowledge is power, where a person who possesses special expertise in a certain field is regarded as important in the organization (Turner, 2010). Such people are extremely valued by the organization in problem solving and decision making processes. Employee 2 is a professional accountant in his organization and has negotiated four–day work week and he is the only worker who is allowed to compress working time in his department which reveals that his knowledge and expertise grants him power over other employees. The accounting manager agrees on his request as he is the only expert in accounting who can prepare the company’s financial statements. This fact shows that the employee is an expert and is granted his wishes unlike other employee because he can perform duties which no other person in the organization can perform. The opinions, ideas and decisions of experts in a company are highly regarded and they enjoy privileges than other employees due to their exceptional skills and expertise. Referent Power A person may have ability to influence others using his personality traits or charisma where one motivates other employees to participate in the various tasks actively. The kind of power that such a person possesses is referent power (Turner, 2010). Referent power arises where interpersonal relationship helps someone to gain considerable recognition in the organization. The third scenario involves an employee who has barely spent a year since his employment in Corporation A was effected. All other employees have at least served three years or even more. Employee 3 is liked by many because of his charisma and positive attitude. He proposed an idea to other members which could be applied in the organization and although many employees doubted the success of the idea, the breakthrough excited them more. After accomplishing the feat, he was selected as a team leader to head a project based on enthusiasm and admiration from other colleagues even with low team leadership experience and with only three short tenures at the corporation. This reveals that he was admired due to his charisma and positive attitude towards work. Referent power comes as a result of admiration, recognition and liking by other people due to personality especially charisma and ability to motivate other people. Legitimate Power It is also referred to as position power and it basically involves the position that one serves in the organization. It can be said to be the leadership position that has been attained with merits and helps the leader to exert power on his subordinates. It is exercised in reference to the organization’s hierarchy where the seniors give orders to those who are below their level (Turner, 2010). In the second scenario the employee consults the accounting manager to be granted four-day week work permission. This shows that the manager has a position that is based on his responsibilities. According to legitimate power the manager has the power to give instructions to subordinates and listen to their requests. Coercive Power Coercive power is exercised by people who want to influence others through punishments, threats, or even sanctions (Turner, 2010). This leads to intimidation of employees where they are required to achieve certain objectives within the required time. Employees work hard to an extent of working late and during weekends. This kind of power relies on some other force that influences employees beyond their normal rates. Employees put extra effort so that they do not lose their jobs or to get rewards. In the first scenario, the manager exerts power to employees to work hard to earn bonuses. This concept shows some sort of influence and intimidation on workers to work hard because if they fail to perform, they will either lose their jobs or fail to get bonuses. Correlation between Power and Dependence Dependence is the state of relying on something or being controlled by something or someone. Power on the other hand involves the ability to perform in a certain way or influence others. Power involves dependence from the people who are under the authority. In the first scenario, we find that the employees are dependent on the power or influence exerted to them by the manager. This results to compliance from the followers of the law. The outcome of power is dependent on the compliance of the followers. For instance, the manager in the first scenario expects that employees will be compliant to his orders especially working late to achieve his objectives to get rewards. If the employees fail to comply, his powers would be null and ineffective. Power and dependence are correlated since, for power to be effective, there has to be dependence especially from followers. Reference Turner, J. H. (2010). Theoretical principles of sociology: Volume 1. New York: Springer. Read More