“There are two distinctive types of leadership. One is power and the other is influence. These two styles are often considered synonymous, as if you have one, it’s assumed you probably have the other. But a closer look at these two forms of leadership shows they work in widely different ways."
An international religious leader, philosopher, and respected moral authority of our time, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the UK and the Commonwealth whom I had the honor of interviewing, writes about leadership in many of his books and inspires thousands of people to lead a more moral, purposeful life. He suggests that influence is consistently successful while power wreaks havoc. "Power is a zero-sum game," he says. "The more we give away, the less we have."
Influencer Leaders Share Success, While Power Leadership Fails
If you have influence and share it with nine people, you increase your influence nine-fold as your influence spreads.
Highly effective leaders seek to uncover the greatness in each individual. These influence leaders are more likable than "power" leaders, as they consistently identify a common point of interest with others and compromise whenever possible so both sides leave satisfied. The best leaders also tend to be great negotiators: They seek to understand the other side's perspective so they can offer options that benefit everyone.
Pressure to achieve doesn't override an influence leader's compassion for people when they make a mistake. Actually, influence leaders encourage people to take calculated risks, accept failure and get back in the game with renewed knowledge of the problem. They don't fear failure as much as they fear not trying to find innovative solutions.
Martin Winterkorn, former chairman of Volkswagen, exemplified failed power leadership. He discouraged feedback and refused to hear problems from the ranks, creating a punitive culture that was said to have pushed engineers to cheat out of fear of not reaching their goals.
The excessive emphasis Winterkorn placed on avoiding failure ironically led to his professional failure and to a huge financial loss for Volkswagen. "Plato famously argued in The Republic that a tyrant, however powerful, ultimately suffers in the end by corrupting his own soul," said Stanford psychologist Robert Sutton. "They might win at life but still fail as human beings."
This power-driven style leads to high employee turnover and low motivation and productivity. In Winterkorn's case, he failed in both arenas: He let down customers, authorities and regulators for cheating diesel car emissions tests.
Power leaders seek control and often abuse their influence. Often, they yearn for attention and respect and use their power to wield attention. They lead by intimidation and fear rather than by garnering respect. They see it as their right and privilege to rule over others rather than their responsibility to set a positive example, advise and offer guidance. Because they keep people close to them who are likeminded, their homogenous teams may enjoy comfortable relationships, but they tend to be less innovative.
Influence Leaders Serve As Mentors, Inspire Innovation and Empower Others
Greed, arrogance and a focus on maintaining a position of power undermine a company's culture. Influence leaders do the opposite -- they lead by serving as mentors and inspire others to follow their vision. They’re willing to take a back seat if that means helping others with talent get heard. They have high character, keep their promises and regularly share credit with fellow employees for good results.
Influence leaders encourage feedback of all kinds and know their role is to inspire creativity and innovation rather than control and dominate.
Rabbi Sacks told me that the best way for managers to inspire leadership in the ranks is to delegate down and empower people as far as possible, then see how they perform.
"First offer praise, encourage, motivate, then be a little bit critical in a constructive way. Get people to feel they're helping other people’s lives, learning new skills, and doing important work. This means you have to learn modesty and self-limitation to create space for other people to lead. One of the most important methods of helping people reach their full potential is highly-focused praise. That creates an enormously positive attitude with individuals and with the group as a whole."
Finally, he advises, be there to mentor and guide those leaders who find particular tasks difficult to develop a first-rate corporate culture.
Influence Leaders Draw Out Greatness In Others
The most confident leaders go so far as to encourage dissension to arrive at more creative solutions to problems. They look for the genius in each employee and come to better solutions, using what Harvard professor and leadership consultant Linda Hill refers to as “collective genius."
Hill writes that great leaders of innovation don’t fit the conventional mold of “good” leadership. No matter what industry a business is in, the role of the leader is critical to innovation. Her studies show that almost anything produced by an organization that is new, useful and even slightly complex came from multiple people, not from an individual genius inventor.
Influence Leaders Ensure Employees Feel Safe
Influence leaders recognize that people give their best when they feel safe and cared for.
To encourage openness among employees, good leaders schedule informal walking meetings, others get feedback from anonymous surveys and others try to understand their employees' personal needs, whether it’s job enrichment, paid time off for religious holidays or flexible hours and mentorship.
It’s up to the leader to discover what matters most to his/her employees and to respect their individual, personal needs.
When people feel safe and protected by an organization, their natural inclination is to trust and cooperate. When asked why they would give their blood, sweat and tears for a person, an influence leader would say, "Because they would have done it for me." Isn't that the organization we would all like to work in?
We need leaders we trust and who use their power to construct an organization on principles of justice, righteousness and compassion. The best leaders recognize that education and guidance should override coercion. Above all, great leaders model right over might and influence over power.
As Rabbi Sacks says, “The use of power diminishes others; the practice of influence enlarges them." Knowledge, inspiration and vision can be shared without loss. When leaders see conflict as an opportunity for collaboration and growth rather than as a threat, the byproduct will inevitably be greater harmony in the ranks and increased innovation.
