Chapter 11: Integrating Leadership and Power: A Micro Process Model

Power and leadership are closely related constructs but tend to be treated independently in the literature. We offer a conceptual framework to integrate their relation. We first review standard operationalizations of leadership and approaches dealing with power (i.e., influence tactics, organizational politics, shared/collective leadership) to highlight important limitations preventing the study of leadership as an influence process toward the achievement of shared goals. Building on these approaches as well as the French and Raven (1959) bases of power, we take a microlens at the interaction episode and offer a process model of leadership. We propose that leadership occurs when an agent activates a power source in a leading attempt that a target ultimately accepts. We offer propositions regarding characteristics of agents and targets—ultimately leaders and followers when influence towards shared goals occurs—to explain the emergence of leadership. Our approach departs from standard operationalization of leadership by studying leadership as a dynamic influence process, not a position of formal power. In a later section, we discuss how power differences and the stability of the power source can inform the leadership process. We conclude by offering various recommendations to apply our micro process model to the study of leadership.