Kenneth W.Thomas and Gail Fann ThomasLearn to positively lead and influence othersToday's leaders know that influence is an essential requirement for effective leadership and that power is a requirement for influence. The Power Base Inventory is an easy-to-use and highly effective management and leadership training tool that reveals leadership and influence styles of individuals. It will acquaint individuals with the different types of power to use to influence others and how to choose among them. The Inventory assesses the approaches individuals use to influence others to get them to do what you want them to do by altering their beliefs or behavior.
Simple and quick to use with just 30 carefully selected statement pairs, the Power Base Inventory indicates a person's level of use of each of the six general types of power a leader can have, or "power bases." Thus, the Inventory provides a menu of choices or resources that a leader can draw from to influence others:
- Information—facts or reasoning that the leader possesses and is able to share convincingly with team members
- Expertise—the leader's superior judgment or knowledge in a specific area
- Goodwill—feelings of support and respect that the leader has built with others
- Authority—the leader's formal right to direct others in certain matters and on others' obligation to follow those directions
- Reward—the leader's control over things others desire
- Discipline—the leader's formal right to punish others
Feedback is included that highlights appropriate uses for each of the power bases, identifies warning signals of both overuse and underuse of each style, and suggests way to strengthen one's ability to use styles appropriately.
This versatile tool can be used in a wide variety of training and development applications, including management development, negotiation workshops, sales training, and communication workshops.
