What types of power do organizational leaders have?

An odd question, isn’t it?

I believe that the most influential theories of power come from the work of social psychologists John R. P. French and Bertram Raven. These two men categorized power into two groups; organizational and personal power. Then sub-divided the groups into five sources of power. These sources of power include, legitimate power, reward power, coercive power, expert power, and finally referent power.

Most people understand ‘legitimate power’ as the leader’s ability to influence others’ behavior because of the position the leader holds within the organization. The power I want to focus on with this blog is ‘reward power’.

Reward power is a leader’s ability to influence the behavior their staff by providing them with things they want to receive, that is rewards. This is an area that I’ve always been confused about. The rewards of most organizations that I’ve enquired about are mainly financial, such as increases in pay or bonuses. Then there are the nonfinancial rewards such as promotions, more responsibility, and recognition.

The question I have is; how do the leader’s decide on the rewards to give to their staff? The reason I ask that questions is that it appears at times that financial rewards are always the fall back option. I write that because for the little bit of time that I have worked for others the rewards were always financial, and frankly I got tired of it. The reason for me being tired of it was that money has never driven me to succeed. I am driven due to other reasons. I won’t tell you what drives me for one reason – I want you to think about what drive’s me, but also think about those you lead.

What is the driver or incentive of your staff?

Is every one of your staff driven by the same thing?

If not, do you think you should find out from each one individually?