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I’ve never been the biggest fan of formal power.
To my mind, there are two types of people that end up telling you what to do at most jobs. One group is managers. That’s organizationally-vetted formal power. Via research, most managers are not actually good at their jobs. Almost every manager I’ve ever had was terrible. For more on this, check out this article.
The other tier is leaders. A leader can be anyone. They don’t necessarily need to be vetted by the organization, but obviously it helps everyone if they are.
The easiest way to think about it is this: leaders are people you want to follow. Managers are people you’re required to follow. It’s the push-pull of leadership at most jobs.
When a manager is not very good at their core functions, it’s essential that they have some degree of formal power. This, of course, makes the situation worse. They cling to that formal power. Oftentimes, they confuse that formal power with “knowing what’s best.” References to their place in the hierarchy abound.
This is where formal power gets dangerous.
The dangers of formal power: Some research
Here’s some work from Stanford on the dangers of power. The researcher/professor opens with this: “Power is like fire. It’s useful, but…
