Do you know the #1 reason why people leave organizations?

It’s NOT because of money…

During my 20 year leadership career in the staffing and recruiting industry, my teams and I placed thousands of GREAT employees at our clients’ organizations.The #1 one reason these GREAT people left their previous employer…MANAGEMENT!

The trust, respect and loyalty had been lost between the person and manager or management team. There are countless reasons for the loss, but it all came down to one main reason: POWER.

Stay with me here…

In an organizational development study originally conducted in the 1960’s by John French and Bertram Raven, there are five sources of POWER divided into two categories that significantly impact YOUR success as a leader:

Expert, Referent, Legitimate, Reward and Coercive.

Lets take a closer look at each of these:

Personal Power (also called Informal Power):
Expert Power comes from one’s experiences, skills, knowledge or abilities.
Referent Power comes from being liked, admired, trusted, and respected.

Formal Power:
Legitimate Power comes from the position/title you hold in an organization.
Reward Power is conveyed by rewarding individuals for compliance with one’s wishes.
Coercive Power is conveyed through fear or threatening others.

As you can see from the diagram below, each type of power leads to one of three outcomes: Commitment, Compliance, or Resistance:

Why is understanding these types, sources and outcomes of power so important? Because it’s the difference between retaining GREAT people or losing them!

Powerful High-Retention Leaders use their personal power to generate buy-in and commitment from their followers.

Frustrated High-Turnover Managers use formal power which generates resistance and short-term compliance.

Do you feel frustrated or powerful? Which sources of POWER are YOU using?

Be SMART, make the shift from frustrated manager to POWERFUL leader!

Do you or your management team need help with the shift? We should talk.