Leadership Power is often overlooked in the workplace as it involves leaders. It’s uncommon in many parts of the world to loudly speak your mind or opinion about your leader. Although the leadership power generates from the followers and how they perceive their leader, those powers a result of the leader’s behaviour towards his subordinates in the first place. Some of the powers may sound hush and not what you want to portray when you one day become one, but you need to always remember that every power comes with its pros and cons. As a leader, you need to know which leadership power you hold and ensure adapting your way of management to enrich its pros and work around its cons. Below are the top five most common powers that leaders possess at the workplace.

Expert Power

The influence of expert power is based on special skills or Knowledge the leader hold. A Leader earns respect based on the amount of experience and knowledge he/she has. Expert power most strongly and consistently related to effective leadership performance.

Pros of the expert power:

• A leader gains respect and honour because of the knowledge and experience he/she holds.
• The leader is a real asset for the organisation and can play a great role in mentoring others.
• Expert power leaders seen by subordinates as a person that deserves the position.
• Subordinate’s value the leader input and learn from it.
• Subordinates keen on developing and enjoy working with expert leaders, as they find in it a great opportunity to learn and develop.
• Expert leaders will be able to win and gain the trust of both Generation X and Generation Y.

Cons of expert power:

• Subordinates may over-rely on the leader in challenges, as they are confident that he/she has the required experience and knowledge on how to tackle such a challenge.
• Team input may not be fully utilised, as some may prefer the easy way of getting the direction from the person with knowledge and experience (leader) which over time lead to lowered creativity.

As an expert leader, you need to be aware of the above pros and cons, work on maximising the benefits of those pros and minimising the impact of the cons. Encourage the team to put their input forward and resist their request to do things the easy way through delegating the challenges upward to you to solve them.

Referent Power

The power and influence based on the possession of desirable resources and personal traits. This evolves when the team believes that the leader possesses qualities that they admire and would like to possess too.

Pros of the referent power

• Subordinates rely on the leader in challenges, as they perceive him as the person that has the resources to solve them.
• Subordinates admire the leader’s traits and traits and want to imitate them.
• The team is motivated as they like the qualities the leader possess.

Cons of the referent power

• The desirable resources the team like, not necessarily correct or up to date.
• The perceived traits maybe not the ones they should adapt to.
• The decision of the referent leader not based on knowledge and experience accordingly may not be the best input. (Remember, the power based on team perception and belief of the leader and not of real expertise).

Legitimate Power

This power the leader receives because of his/her position in the hierarchy in the organisation. Based on this power, the person has been given the roles, responsibilities and the right to act in this position. Accordingly, he/she expect the team to comply with their legitimate requests.

Pros of the legitimate power

• The leader has the right to act and take decisions based on the delegation of authority he/she possesses.
• Generation Baby Boomer and Generation X likely to comply with legitimate power, but resistance will be high from the Y and millennium generation

Cons of the legitimate power

• The leader may lack the knowledge and skills to carry the delegated roles and responsibilities.
• Despite being followed by some generation (BB, X), the legitimate power leader is not seen as a person that carries the qualities and traits of an idle leader.
• Employee’s motivation and loyalty is low, especially among the Y generation as their traits by default reject the legitimate power.

Reward Power

This power based on the leader’s ability to observe, reward and acknowledge the team for being compliant with the procedure or what he/she sees as valuable. The leader rewards and acknowledges the team and individuals’ achievements all the time.

Pros of the reward power

• High-performance output among the team and individuals.
• High motivation among the team.
• Team and individuals will go the extra mile to receive the acknowledgement and reward.

Cons of the reward power

• Team and individual may delay some tasks if the leader is not around to gain the reward.
• The taste of acknowledgement and reward may be lost over time.
• If the leader set a lower bench for the minimum acceptable performance level, this may lead to rewards given to below-standard performance achievements.

Coercive Power

The power based on the fear factor. The leader bases his power on threat and creating an environment of insecurity for the team members to get the job done, this will make the individuals and team perform under the pressure of fear.

Pros of the coercive power

• The job will be done to the standards and on time due to the fear factor.

Cons of the coercive power

• Low team morals and motivation.
• Unhappy working environment
• Disregard the human factor
• The job will be only to do the task to the standards (work by book).
• Lack of creativity and team input due to the fear of disciplinary for not following the standards.
• With low loyalty to the organisation, the high performers will run out of the door at the first opportunity.
• Organisation performance will drop over time due to the loss of high calibres.