#46 - What is Leadership?
When you hear the word, “leader” what do you think of? Probably you’re imagining the President of the United States, a military commander, an important CEO, or something comparable. All of these are accurate—they are leaders at a very high level. Sometimes leadership gets boiled down to only the really powerful important leaders and ignored on a much broader scale. In reality, we interact with (or are) leaders every day. They might not be leading a country or massive company but teachers, parents, coaches, team captains, and camp counselors.
Leadership itself is derived from power which can come from two places: personal power and position power. Below is a basic breakdown of where leaders can get power (there are a couple more position power sources but these are the important ones).
Personal Power – Leadership power that is “earned.” Instead of being in a position of authority, these people are leaders because of the respect people have for them.
Expert Power – Everyone sees this person as an expert on a specific thing. For this reason, they respect them and want to follow them.
Referent Power – This type of power exists when people feel affection, admiration, loyalty, or other positive feelings for the leader. They follow this person because they “like” them.
Position Power – This leadership power is “given.” It is associated with a specific position or title like CEO, President, Principal, or Coach.
Coercive Power – This type of power is the ability to punish. As a leader with coercive power, they have the authority to give punishments like firing, extra workouts, etc.
Reward Power – Opposite of the previous, reward power is when the leader has the authority to give rewards like money, time off, varsity positions, playing time, etc.
Information Power – Information is valuable so when someone has control of the flow of information and who knows what, they have power.
As you can imagine, the different sources of power make a big difference in how successful the leader is. Leaders who rely only on coercive power by threatening punishment all the time, run the risk of becoming a leader everyone hates. Many people don’t understand this dynamic which leads to the confusion between being a “leader” and a “manager.” Of course a manager can be a leader but the confusion is when people picture all leaders as commanders who issue orders to the unimportant “foot soldiers.” Good leaders usually aren’t demanding, dictatorial, micromanagers. A good manager/leader, is one who has both position and personal power. Yes, they have the title and can punish and reward, but they’re also someone that is respected and admired. That is a successful leader.
Another important observation I want to point out is that a title or position is not necessary to be a leader. Many people are seen as leaders because of their personal power. As a young person, there are fewer opportunities for position power leadership which makes personal power so important. I hope that you have the opportunity to lead as a team captain at some point, but if not you still have the opportunity to be an informal leader. Tomorrow we are going to discuss how important personal power and informal leadership is for people in your position. If you are a captain or are hoping to be one soon, check out advancingdaily.com/copy-of-content and look for the article titled “Things I Learned Being Captain.”