Concept
There is, I say, a difference between power and leadership. All leadership exerts power, but not all power is leadership. Power is the ability to get others to do what you want them to do. So while leadership is to varying degrees powerful, some people with lots of power are not leaders. I say that because in my view leadership consists of the ability and the willingness to influence others so that they respond voluntarily. Without a voluntary response, we cannot call it leadership. It may be the use of power, or the abuse of power, but it’s not leadership.
In order to understand more about power and leadership and the relation between them, let us first consider power and its sources. French and Raven (1959) ...
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