Situational Leadership, Perception and The Impact of Power: Reading 1 Summary

Reading 1 Summary
“Situational Leadership, Perception and the Impact of Power”
Situational Leadership, Perception and the Impact of Power

In general, leadership is defined as the process of influencing the activities of an individual or
a group to achieve a particular goal. On the other hand, power can be described as the
leader’s influence potential or an element that enables to influence followers.
Leadership and power are inseparable, and for a leader to influence the followers, he or she
must possess some kind of power that makes it happen. The seven different power bases are
explained below in detail,
1) Coercive Power: This type of power is based on fear through which the followers are
influenced to do the task, and failure to do will result in punishment in terms of work
assignments, reprimands, or dismissals.
2) Connection Power: This is based on the connections with influential or important
people. The followers are motivated because they can gain favour or avoid disfavour
from powerful connections.
3) Expert Power: This is based on the possession of expertise, skillset, and the leader
leverages these to facilitate the work behaviour of others.
4) Information Power: It is based on the possession of or access to valuable information,
and the workers are motivated as they need or want that information.
5) Legitimate Power: It is based on the position held by the leader in an organization. If
the leader is at a higher level, then the workers feel that this person by virtue expects
compliance.
6) Referent Power: It is based on the personality traits of the leader. If he or she is admired
by the workers, they might work harder to get themselves associated with them.
7) Reward Power: It is based on the ability to provide rewards. Followers believe their
improved performance might lead to better recognition and rewards.
A lot of studies have examined the correlation between the leader’s primary power base and
the follower’s performance and the results indicate that the appropriate power base depends
on the situational variables and also on the circumstances.
Situational Leadership:
Situational leadership provides the basis for understanding the
potential impact of each power base.The maturity of the follower not
only depicts which type of leadership will have a high probability of
success but also the power base the leader must employ.
There are four styles (telling, selling, participating, delegating) in the

prescriptive curve is a combination of task behaviour and
relationship behaviour.
Task behaviour represents the leader’s direction in telling people what,when, where and how
to perform the specified tasks. Relationship behaviour represents the two way
communication, including listening and support by the leader.
Telling: Under this style, the people are told what, how, where and when to perform. This
style is basically for low maturity people who don’t have the competency to do their tasks.
Selling: This style is for low to moderate maturity people. They are those people who are
willing to work but unable to take up responsibility, and a slight push from the leader is
needed in the form of a directive behaviour.
Participating: This style is for moderate to high maturity people, wherein the follower has
the ability to work but lacks the self-confidence, and hence the leader needs to maintain two-
way communication to support him/her.
Delegating: This type of approach is for high maturity wherein people have the capability to
work and make their own decisions. Hence, this style involves low relationship behaviour
and low task behaviour.
The Perception of Power:
The follower’s perception of a leader’s power plays a major role in inducing compliance or
influencing the behaviour. Therefore, in order to increase the probability of influencing
others, the leaders need information about the sources of power,which they perceive and act
accordingly.
Conclusion:
In general, the managers consider the relationships among leadership styles, available power
bases and in the process of developing organizations will gradually move away from the
power bases that gain better productivity and influencing people. This evolution might
definitely yield a more mature, content and productive organization.

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Reading 1 Summary

“Situational Leadership, Perception and the Impact of Power”

Situational Leadership, Perception and the Impact of Power

There are four styles (telling, selling, participating, delegating) in the

The Perception of Power:

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