USD Professor Craig Barkacs on the 10 Sources of Power and How Anyone Can Use Them

In his last blog post for Psychology Today, Professor of Business Law Craig Barkacs explained the difference between power and influence as they’re classically defined in business and organizational psychology, and made the case that even though the words “power and influence” have some ambivalent connotations, these forces can be used in positive ways. In his latest blog post, he says: 

I also reviewed Robert Cialdini’s seven principles of influence and, in what I hoped was a moving example of using these principles for good, I shared a letter that a former student of mine had written to his sick mother as a way to convince her to undergo treatment that she needed.

This time we’ll be looking at the principles of power, which are a lot more complex than many people realize. And though it might seem counterintuitive at first, we’ll see how power is not just something that belongs to, and is used by, those who fit the conventional image of powerful people—business executives, high-ranking politicians, and military officers, to name a few examples. It is also something that can be wielded, very effectively in fact, by ordinary people who occupy rank and file positions in organizations.

The 10 Sources of Power

In a classic 1959 study, two social psychologists named John French and Bertram Raven originally identified five different sources of power: legitimate, reward, coercive, expert, and referent. Six years later Raven added a sixth, informational. Over the years, based on research done by others, I’ve been able to identify four additional sources of power that I add to French and Raven’s original six when I teach my classes on power and influence in organizational politics. I came up with a mnemonic device to help my students remember them:

LoRCER, INC.’s Framed Agenda

The “LoRCER, INC.” part (minus the lowercase “o”) is an acronym, and the words “Framed” and “Agenda” represent the sources of power they refer to, framing power and agenda power. Let’s take a closer look at what each source of power means.

• Legitimate power: This is the one that’s most obvious. It’s power granted by the rank, status, and title that an individual or group has within an organization or society. Having legitimate power usually makes reward power and coercive power (see below) possible, though it isn’t the only way as I’ll explain shortly.  
• Reward power: The ability to grant various kinds of benefits to others such as hire, promote, and give raises. It’s typically made possible by legitimate power, but the difference is in how they work. With legitimate power, the status and title alone demand that people comply. With reward power, people want to comply more out of a desire for the benefits and rewards implicitly promised for complying (e.g., promotions and raises). 
• Coercive power: Basically the opposite of reward power. It’s the ability to punish in some way such as reprimands, suspensions, demotions, and ultimately termination. As with reward power, it usually comes together with legitimate power, and people will comply out of fear of being punished.  
• Expert power: Power that comes from having specialized knowledge in a valued area. People will comply out of belief in the power holder’s expertise as well as the desire to benefit from that expertise and/or the fear of missing out on something if they don’t. For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused the sudden transition to online learning, one person who suddenly became more important than just about everyone else here at the University of San Diego School of Business was a fellow named Brett Beyers. Mr. Beyers, you see, is the official tech guru of our department. 
• Referent power: This is power that comes from charisma, likeability, and attractiveness (not necessarily physical), regardless of rank and status. People comply with this kind of power due to the admiration they have for the holder of referent power.

The above is an excerpt written by USD Professor of Business Law Craig Barkacs and published in Psychology Today, for which he is an official blogger.