Implications of Each Power Source

Each of the five sources of power has different consequences for the leader who uses it. Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford, one of today’s most influential management thinkers, reviewed several studies on power and identified specific patterns. The patterns are useful for a school head deciding which sources to build and which to use sparingly.

Why this matters

A school head has five sources of power available. She uses some more than others. The mix she uses shapes her staff’s behaviour, motivation, and longevity at the school. A head who relies on the wrong sources produces predictable problems even if she does not see the cause.

Knowing the implications of each source helps her choose her mix deliberately.

Legitimate power: useful start, dangerous long-term

Legitimate power can be depended on initially, but continued reliance creates dissatisfaction, resistance, and frustration in workers. Must coincide with expert power, otherwise there may be negative effects on productivity, as it may lead to only minimum compliance.

A new principal can use legitimate power on day one. She has the title. Staff comply because she is the principal. This is normal and acceptable for a while.

The trap is staying there. A principal who is still relying primarily on legitimate power three years into her tenure has not built the other sources. Her staff complies but does not commit. Performance is at the minimum acceptable level, not at peak.

The fix is to build expert power alongside legitimate power. The principal who develops deep knowledge of teaching, curriculum, and school operations earns expert power. Her staff defers to her not just because she is the principal but because she knows.

A school head can check herself: am I being followed because of my position or because of what I know? If the honest answer is mostly position, she has work to do.

Reward power: short-term effective, long-term corrosive

Reward power can directly influence the employee-performance behaviours in the short run. Prolonged use of reward power can lead to a dependent relationship in which workers feel manipulated and become dissatisfied.

Rewards work fast. A bonus for hitting test score targets produces effort. A promotion for the best teacher attracts other teachers’ attention. A public recognition for great work motivates more great work.

The trap is over-reliance. A school where every behaviour has to be tied to a reward becomes transactional. Staff stop doing what is right unless it pays. They calculate whether the effort is worth the reward.

Two specific failure modes:

1. Reward fixation. Staff focus only on what is rewarded. Other important work gets neglected.
2. Reward dependency. When the reward stops, the behaviour stops. The behaviour was never internalised.

The fix is to use rewards for specific targeted behaviours, not as the general mode of motivation. The default should be intrinsic motivation (covered in the next chapter). Rewards should reinforce, not replace, intrinsic motivation.

Coercive power: most damaging long-term

Although coercive power may lead to temporary compliance by subordinates, it produces the undesirable side effects of frustration, fear, revenge, and alienation. This in turn may lead to poor performance, dissatisfaction, and turnover.

Coercive power produces compliance in the moment and damage over time. A staff member threatened with dismissal performs the immediate task to avoid the threat. She also disengages, looks for other employment, badmouths the school, and possibly sabotages future work.

The research on coercive power is one-sided: long-term use produces consistently bad outcomes. The mitigation is to use coercive power only when truly necessary (genuine misconduct, safety violations, persistent failure after coaching) and to use it formally, transparently, and proportionally.

A school head who relies on coercion has usually failed to build the other sources. The coercion is filling the gap that expert and referent power should fill.

Expert power: produces trust and self-motivation

Expert power is closely related to a climate of trust. Usage of expert power results in attitudinal conformity and internalised motivation by the workers. This in turn requires less surveillance of workers than does reward or coercive power.

Expert power produces a different kind of compliance. The teacher who follows the principal’s curriculum advice because the principal genuinely knows curriculum is not being controlled; she is being persuaded. Her compliance is internal, not external.

The handout’s important phrase: “requires less surveillance”. Staff who trust the leader’s expertise do the work without needing to be watched. The leader saves time and energy that other sources of power require for monitoring.

Building expert power takes years. It is worth the investment because the returns compound. A principal known for genuine expertise has influence beyond her position.

Referent power: deepest and most durable

Referent power can lead to enthusiastic and unquestioning trust, compliance, loyalty, and commitment from subordinates. Like expert power, considerably less surveillance of employees is required.

Referent power produces the strongest follower response. Staff follow the leader not because they have to but because they want to. They believe in her. They want to be like her. They give more than the job requires.

Referent power is partly natural and partly built. Some leaders have natural charisma that produces referent power easily. Most have to build it over time through integrity, care, and modelling.

The handout uses a strong word: “unquestioning”. This is also the risk. A leader with strong referent power can take her followers in directions that turn out to be wrong, because they will follow without questioning. The protection is the leader’s own self-awareness and humility (covered in the Level 5 chapter).

The healthy mix

Pfeffer’s findings, taken together, point to a healthy mix.

1. Legitimate power. Use to set the frame, call meetings, exercise authority where authority belongs.
2. Reward power. Use sparingly for specific targeted behaviours.
3. Coercive power. Use rarely, formally, and only when other sources have not worked.
4. Expert power. Build over years; use constantly.
5. Referent power. Build over years; the foundation that supports the others.

A school head whose mix is heavy on legitimate and coercive, light on expert and referent, has a problem regardless of what her current results look like. The problem will surface eventually.

A school head whose mix is heavy on expert and referent, with legitimate, reward, and coercive used sparingly and appropriately, is doing the work. Her school becomes a better place over time.

A practical exercise

A school head can do a self-audit at the end of any year. For each interaction with staff this year, ask: which source of power was I relying on?

The honest tally is revealing. Many principals find they rely more on legitimate power than they thought. Some find they use coercive power more often than they realised. Some discover that their expert power is thinner than they assumed.

Knowing the mix is the first step to changing it. The fix is to invest deliberately in expert and referent power over the next year, while reducing reliance on coercion.

Flashcard

Which sources of power produce trust and which produce compliance only?

Tap to reveal

Answer

Expert and Referent produce trust. Legitimate, Reward, and Coercive produce compliance only.

1. Expert power. Creates a climate of trust. Workers internalise motivation. Less surveillance needed.
2. Referent power. Produces enthusiastic loyalty and commitment. Even less surveillance needed.

The other three produce only compliance:

3. Legitimate. Useful initially, but continued reliance produces dissatisfaction.
4. Reward. Short-term effective, long-term corrosive when over-used.
5. Coercive. Temporary compliance, with frustration, fear, revenge, and alienation as side effects.

A school head should invest in expert and referent power over years, while using legitimate, reward, and coercive sparingly and appropriately.