Express your point of view. Enlarge one quotation into a situation or an example from a real life.

1) Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. (George S. Patton)

2) People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.

(Mary Kay Ash)
2) When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing at himself. (Louis Nizer)

Group work

I. Fill in the following chart with the appropriate information.

Illustrate each case of power with your examples from real life.

Leadership power

An essential part of leadership or management is to influence the people you manage so that they do what you want them to do. The influence of a leader will depend on a variety of factors including their personality and of those around them. We will refer to the people that the leader is managing or leading as followers. The influence of a leader over his followers is often referred to as power. Below we will explore the different types of power a leader may have.

Reward Power

This type of influence is created when the leader is able to offer a reward to his followers for completing tasks behaving in a certain manner. Rewards in the workplace can take a variety of forms from chocolates, gift vouchers and holidays to promotions, commission and pay rises. This reward will only be effective if:

Firstly - the reward appeals to the followers. As you are aware there is no point offering chocolate as a reward to somebody who likes crisps. This is because they will not view chocolate as a reward, so there is no incentive to complete the task.

Secondly – the followers have to believe that the leader will give them (or arrange for them to receive) the reward promised once the task is completed by them.

Thirdly – the reward should be proportionate to the task the follower has to complete. For example it would be disproportionate to reward an employee with a promotion for making a cup of tea. Similarly a follower would feel undervalued, if rewarded with a $5 gift voucher after they spent six months doing their managers job without a pay rise.

This type of power needs to be used carefully to prevent followers becoming accustomed to rewards and refusing to complete routine tasks without a reward. Generally rewards should not be offered, to follower employees to complete duties which are a normal part of their role. This is because as an employee they are under a contractual obligation to complete these tasks and they are already rewarded for this through their salary.

The other reason why rewards should be offered carefully is that frequent use can reduce the impact or influence that offering a reward initially had on the follower. Followers will soon tire of the reward especially if the reward is small for example chocolates or flowers.