Five Bases of Power

Five Bases of Power

As we learned last week, there are five bases of power, which are coercive power, reward power, legitimate power, expert power, and referent power. These five bases of power are then broke down into groups formal power and personal power (Stephen & Timothy, 2009). Formal power is a described as a position on the corporate ladder such as marketing manager, store manager, and associate. In a company with a corporate ladder the higher, someone is on the ladder the more decision-making power they would have like the marketing manger whereas an associate of the company may not have any power to make a decision. The personal power may be someone in the same department who is not your manager but instead the person with the most experience and capable of leading the rest of the department (Davoren, 2012).

The formal power is broken up into three powers: coercive power, reward power, and legitimate power. In my organization, the coercive power leaders cannot be afraid to take a risk, working in the public eye customers can sense if someone is afraid of the negative result. Reward power would probably motivate my co-workers and I more to suggest of sell other products, such as having sell contest more within the store instead of within the company with incentives. Having more contest within the store would give us more of an opportunity considering that they organization that I work for is a part of the Kroger Company, which employs more than three hundred thousand people a year within several companies. Legitimate power if more employees followed this power things would most likely be done by the book instead of employees doing what they want, how they want, and everyone would be on the same page.

The last two powers, expert power and referent power, are personal or informal power. Considering my organization I work for the expert power would give employees with certain skills or experience the opportunity