Referent power is a form of reverence gained by a

leader Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets vi ...

who has strong

interpersonal relationship The concept of interpersonal relationship involves social associations, connections, or affiliations between two or more people. Interpersonal relationships vary in their degree of intimacy or self-disclosure, but also in their duration, in t ...

skills. Referent power, as an aspect of personal power, becomes particularly important as organizational leadership becomes increasingly about collaboration and influence and less about

command and control Command and control (abbr. C2) is a "set of organizational and technical attributes and processes ... hatemploys human, physical, and information resources to solve problems and accomplish missions" to achieve the goals of an organization or en ...

. In an organizational setting, referent power is most easily seen in the

charisma Charisma () is a personal quality of presence or charm that compels its subjects. Scholars in sociology, political science, psychology, and management reserve the term for a type of leadership seen as extraordinary; in these fields, the term "ch ...

tic leader who excels in making others feel comfortable in his or her presence. Staff typically express their excitement about work in terms of their attraction to their leader's personal characteristics and charisma. They commit to their work because of the leader's likability, and they base their self-esteem and sense of accomplishment on their leader's approval. Referent power may be defined as 'the ability of a leader to influence a follower due to the follower's admiration, respect, or identification with the leader'. It has been suggested that the term ''referent power'' may reflect a misspelling, with a more appropriate label being ''reverent power''. The

Cambridge English Dictionary The ''Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary'' (abbreviated ''CALD'') was first published in 1995 under the name ''Cambridge International Dictionary of English'', by the Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the ...

defines ''reverent'' as "showing great respect and admiration", whereas "referent" is typically defined as "the thing that a symbol stands for, or refers to".

Bertram Raven Bertram Herbert Raven (September 26, 1926 – February 26, 2020) was an American academic. He was a member of the faculty of the psychology department at UCLA from 1956 until his death. He is perhaps best known for his early work in collaboration ...

states that "''Referent power'' stems from the target identifying with the agent, or seeing the agent as a

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

that the target would want to emulate".Raven, B. H. (2008)
"The Bases of Power and the Power/Interaction Model of Interpersonal Influence"
''Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy'', Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 3

See also

References

Further reading