Describe a person in a position of authority over you who used power rather than leadership to influence you. Share your thoughts about the experience and about the relationship between leadership and power. Explain what you learned from the experience. If you are a student outside the United States, provide a perspective on how leadership and power might differ in your country or region from that in the United States.
Differences in leadership, power and position
Leadership has always been described to come with some level of social influence. So, therefore, leadership becomes quite instrumental and trivial in enabling people use their influence and position in reaching the goals of a group or an organization. On the same breath, leadership is usually associated with making the difference through the realization of transformations and breakthroughs in the performance scales (Neal, Vinson, 2012). The position is the conferred power that a person gets to have a service performed. Positions can be elective, appointed or just nominated and, therefore, can easily be taken away. Positions often come with the authority to give the order, direction and protection and any social organization demands the existence of such authorities in position.
Power is a form of influence that is resourceful both for leadership and authority in positions. Power can sometimes be formal or informal with the formal type coming from a position. Gandhi had an informal position, and there was so much power that was linked with this position that influenced so many people’s lives positively (Strong, 2009). Through his positional influence and the thoughts he shared, my life has been illuminated so vastly and in a broad dimension. Just from his personal attributes, he gets what is described as informal power. So, therefore, power and informal authority are essential in gaining authority and formal power. So in a nutshell, authority and power do not walk together per say. While positional authority gives a direction on protection, direction and order leadership is a contrasting difference to this example.
References
Neal, A., & Vinson, D. (2012). Developing a leadership strategy. Alexandria, Va: American Society for Training & Development.
Strong, C. R. (2009). The role of charismatic leadership in ending the Cold War: The presidencies of Boris Yeltsin, Vaclav Havel, and Helmet Kohl. Lewis-ton: Edwin Mellon Press