Positive Power Prevails

Positive Power Prevails

“Leadership is the ability to get others to do what they don’t want to do and like it,” states Harry Truman. The struggle since the beginning of time for any leader in an organization includes getting others to do what is necessary to accomplish whatever goal there may be. Power acquirement and power use can both have a serious impact on job performance, career progress, on organizational effectiveness, and on the lives of numerous people. So, the way about administering the power a leader gains is extremely important in the respect of being considerate to the followers as well as being successful within the organization since that is the goal in today’s world. Leadership can be defined as “the process of using power to obtain relational influence”. Both Gary Yukl and John Kotter attempt to identify the most beneficial way of dealing with power as a leader. Although both individuals share a number of the same points (regarding personal and positional power), differences within these ideas create a separation between the two that easily distinguishes which has the greater method of dealing with the matter. Yukl’s approach is centered on the manipulation of friendships to acquire and administer power whereas Kotter believes a more positive approach including constructive criticism and innovative thinking, along with a number of other methods, will yield the most beneficial results. Yukl’s negative tactics of attaining power through manipulation is ineffective and less productive when compared to Kotter’s constructive and successful approach by using positive methods to reach a position of leadership and exert the power within an organization.

When discussing the topic of personal power, Yukl includes three subtopics that derive potential influence which include expertise, friendship and loyalty, and charisma. Kotter, though very similar, chooses knowledge and information, personal attraction and effort as the three subtopics to help describe his notion of personal power. Initially, Kotter’s topics seem less arrogant in that they avoid words that evoke personal greatness or superiority. Expertise and charisma are words that are not as humble as knowledge and effort. Additionally, as stated by Yukl in the passage pertaining to expertise, "... people sometimes try and protect their expert power by keeping procedures and techniques shrouded in secrecy... by destroying alternate sources of information about task procedures...” (Yukl). The notion of manipulation suggested in the excerpt highlights the fact that Yukl believes it is okay to go about attaining power in a negative way. However, Kotter’s approach is a much more positive one and states, “Leader power can be increased through expertise acquired by possession of special knowledge and information… Influence involves securing the consent of others to assist, collaborate, and work with you in achieving