The Distinction between Influence and Authority - Research Paper Example

Leadership is about coping with change while management is about dealing with complexities. On the part of leadership, influence is necessary to align the people, communicate the vision with them and motivate them. On the part of management, there is a strong effort for establishing authority and at some point, a legitimate source of power is necessary to command exact compliance, such as company policies and other relevant rules.

Managers have formal authority to organize the entire organization in a certain way guided by set rules and formal sources of power. Managers could fire employees, inflict certain levels of punishment, or implement rewards. Managers need to do this to address complex and diverse human behaviors in an organization and implement procedures for a highly complex group, emancipating many complicated issues or concerns. This concept is clearly stated in Kotter’s concept about managers and management. There is strong inclusion of formal authority in management, allowing the people to follow even if some of them may have a significant level of opposition.

On the other hand, leaders have informal sources of influence. A person in a group may not necessarily be a manager to become a leader. A person who has an informal source of influence could create followers and not subordinates. A person with an informal source of influence could effectively impart the vision to his subordinates, creating an atmosphere for substantial change. This is what exactly Kotter wants to elaborate on. In the presence of leadership, people would be highly motivated to achieve things even in the absence of formal authority. In other words, there must be a strong inclusion of what exactly would motivate them, which from the psychological perspective should involve an understanding of needs and satisfaction (Feldman, 2003). After all, motivation includes certain factors leading to the arousal of human behaviors in particular. This something that could arouse their behavior may not be necessarily a formal source of authority and power but rather are elemental human needs leading to potential sources of influence.

In other words, influence and formal authority could be clearly illustrated through human behavior and response. Influence and formal authority create a human response. However, there is a difference in the reason for the response. With influence, the reason is quite personal, but with the formal source of authority, the reason could be due to an established legal basis or social contract. It is here where rules would be set in rather than free will from exact compliance in the absence of legitimate power.