Referent power versus charismatic leadership

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The age-old adage about power goes something like this - power is the process of ‘getting people to do what they would otherwise not want to do,’ while, in contrast, leadership involves ‘getting people to do what you want done, because they want to do it.’

Furthermore, power and leadership can be considered reciprocal, existing along a continuum. Based on this relationship, without leadership, managers must rely solely on power to impose and accomplish their goals for the organization. However, if a situation of perfect and total leadership is present, power becomes unnecessary. Power involves dependency and requires opposition, whereas leadership relies more on motivation, coaching and collaboration toward a mutual goal.

French and Raven (1959) posited various sources of power, including reward, coercive, legitimate, expert and referent. In their schema, referent power refers to power sourced in the dynamic personality of the person in the power position. It relies on personal appeal and inspiration to encourage, seduce or manipulate individuals into cooperative involvement. It may be based on various sources within the individual to which the followers feel an attractions or connection (i.e., defiance of authority, personality appeal, age, threat of danger).

Much like with charismatic leadership, referent power relies on creating a persuasive and appealing vision toward which the director can guide followers. However, whereas it is it a form of power that is emotionally charged and powerfully appealing, it nonetheless is driven by the desires and objectives of the person in power and relies on persuading others to follow in that vision, not necessarily to follow their own.

Referent power contrasts with charismatic leadership in that the basic objective is just to secure the following, with the reasons for the behavior being important only in their ability to generate an understanding of the psyche of the follower in order to maintain the power. Charismatic leadership, instead, aspires to guide individuals of like mind to an understanding and embracing of a collective vision.

Reference

French, J. R. P., Jr., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power (p. 150–167). University of Michigan.

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