The Acid Teas of Leadership

As a person moves up the organization, certain new powers are associated with that position. Along with the ability to control, direct, organize, evaluate, coach, counsel and discipline, there are three other types of power that a supervisor can utilize. They are coercive power, reward power and legitimate power.

Coercive power is the power to punish- to create consequences for those who do not comply with what you want (conform to your demands or respond to your request.)

Reward power is the power to create favorable consequences for those who do quality work.

Legitimate power is the perception that a person in a particular role has the right to control behavior or make demands upon others who are under his/her command or supervision. This role gives the power to issue orders, control activities, and make demands and request of people.

Since the capacity to reward or punish others makes position the strongest power source, position power is most likely to be abused. In the hands of an unscrupulous leader, position power has the capacity to inflict an extraordinary amount of damage.

So, with the types of power identified, what is the “acid test of leadership?” The acid test of leadership is if your leaders didn’t have the position power previously discussed, would they still be the leaders?

Over the years during training workshops that I have taught, I have asked this question many times. As it turns out the majority of firefighters surveyed don’t believe their chief officers could pass the acid test of leadership however, around 60% of the firefighters surveyed do believe that their company officers can pass the acid test of leadership (that still leaves 40% who can’t). This survey result is a very sad commentary for our fire service leaders.

This might be a good time to identify important leadership traits that will ensure passing the acid test of leadership.