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Leadership versus Power

The concepts of power and leadership have much in common. Certain people are leaders because they exercise power.It are unthinkable that a leader should not have power. Consequently the exercise of influence is a central part of most definitions of leadership.Accordng to La-Piere, leadership is a behavior that affects the behavior of other people more than their behavior affects that of the leader.Pigor also says leadership is a concept applied to the personality to describe the situation when a personality is so placed in the environment that it directs the feeling and insight and controls others in pursuit of a common cause. According to Allen leadership is the activity of persuading people to cooperate in the achievement of a common objective. Terry defines it as the activity of influencing people to strive willingly for mutual objectives.

Leadership always involves attempts on the part of a leader to affect the behavior of a follower or followers in a situation. Power is not equivalent with influence or with initiating change in another person’s behavior without regard to the situation in which it occurs. A new born infant can influence and change the behavior of his parents but this influence is not equivalent with power in the family.

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