Ashford University
Leadership Power and Influence
Dennis Kosinski
ABS415
Instructor: Theodore Framan

Power Corrupts This assignment addresses the issue of power in leadership. It analysis the statement from Lord Action a British historian in the nineteenth century, he made the statement that “power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Daft, 2008). Through history many leaders as they have increased their positions of power, have tended to abuse their power. When one has authority and position of authority and power increases, it posses the question, do leaders lower their moral and ethical standards as levels of that power and influence increases? My personal opinion is that power does corrupt some people, but not as a rule. I feel that those who are given power that are not prepared for the responsibility to lead have a higher risk of abusing that power. Those who are not educated and properly mentored in the ethical and moral use of power may be influenced by poor role models in leadership positions. Without having a solid structured background that creates a good leader, there can be a breakdown in psychosocial approach. Ethical leaders use power to serve people and organizational goals and respect of others in dealing fairly (Daft). For the purpose of this assignment I will give two examples of my personal experiences with two different types of mangers, one being a socialized leader and the other as a personalized leader approaches. The first to be discussed will be the Socialized leader. This style of leadership can be defined as “behavior based on valuing others” (Daft, 2008). This manager was an “organizational” goal oriented leader, their goals where to support the needs of the workers whether it was professional or the personal needs of the employees. This leader was approachable and had empathy from many years in the field a person who worked their way up from a lower position such as those they were now leading and managing. They also empowered other employees to accept responsibility to manage and become leaders and take charge in the absence of management. Education of employees was another aspect they used to help development of skills and continuing education which as a leader personally taught these skills in groups or small classes. All these traits gave the manager creditability and the respect from others which in turn, helped with compliance on job and gave them more control, power and influence in an ethical and moral manner. My second life experience was with a manager with the traits of the Personalized leader. A personalized leader can be described as having behavior of self interest. This form of leadership is considered more exploitive in nature and is more about control than goals as a team effort. My personal experience with this manager is that they used their power in a coercive manner, in other words using punishment rather than reward as a means of control. This manager was unapproachable and used intimidation as a means to achieve their person agenda for desired outcomes for performance which included micro-managing each employee which created distrust, contempt and resentment. Often even to go so far a verbally abusive and demeaning in their attempts to dominate others. This person did not have the same empathy and life experience of the Socialized leader even though they had the same job title. Other unethical issues or moral issues arose through this