Azita Beheshti

PSYC 305

Week 2

Power is the ability or official capacity to exercise control and authority to reach an objective. The lecture defines: Referent, reward, legitimate, coercive and expert as five different types of power that Sandy, the manager in charge, use’s in order to achieve her objective. The effectiveness of each type of power is greatly dependent on the ability of the Person of Authority, Sandy; to clearly recognize and understand the need and obstacles his/her situation demands, and apply the proper type of power. In the first lecture Sandy utilizes referent power to empower and motivate Danni to do what she needs by rewarding him with a better section. In the other lectures Sandy applies legitimate power in order to guide and help focus Danni to overcome a potentially troublesome situation with the irate customers. Sandy’s legitimate power motivated Danni to use Expert power and minimize the coercive power applied by the customer. The effectiveness of the different types/tools of power varies according to the demands of the situation at hand. A good leader will learn the ability to recognize different situations and problems and learn to apply the proper remedy of power to the task at hand.

In my personal experience and based on my personality type I have always found that using referent and reward power has been a great motivator to others and asset in achieving my objectives. People are different, have different needs, wants, abilities and objectives. According to our personality types we posses less or more of all five types of power. Some people might be more comfortable with expert power and others like myself prefer to use referent or reward power.

Power is used to exercise control and authority in order to obtain a goal or objective gaining maximum results with minimum expenditure. A successful leader is one that posses and understand all five types of power and has the ability to apply the proper remedy, type of power, according to the needs and necessitates of the situation. Understanding the needs of the situation and problem at hand will help a good leader apply proper resolve to it.