In previous courses, the one on developing your executive presence through confidence, we looked at the difference between personal power and social power. And in this lesson, we're going to learn a little bit more about power and the impact it has on leadership. The distinction we made previously was that personal power is the freedom from others to do what you feel is right. Whereas social power comes from title, it's tempting to use the title of executive bestowed upon us at your appointment and use it to direct how work gets done. However, we need to resist using power in this way. As McGregor burns, author of leadership suggests transactional leaders trade things of similar value to get work done.

For example, a transactional leader will trade money for union acceptance of a collective agreement. That's our traditional use of social power to avert a strike. A transformational leader on the other hand, motivates others through a shared vision. versus the strike by appealing to the corporate purpose and is credible enough that those who follow believe in the vision and trust the leader to hold their best interests at heart thought of in these terms between transactional and transformational. social power is different. social power manipulates people as they are, whereas leadership transforms them into what they could be social power managers, whereas leadership mobilizes them.

Social power impacts where transformational leadership engage social power tends to corrupt whereas transformational leadership tends to create. Edmund Burke was an Irish philosopher who once said that the only thing necessary for triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. So leadership is not passive. Empowerment doesn't come from standing back and letting the followers run the show. Leadership requires active involvement. All leaders have visions of the future and when executives work together, that vision is shared among all leadership requires both vision and initiative.

For anything to happen. An old Japanese proverb said that vision without action is a daydream. And action without vision is a nightmare. So good leaders ensure that we all sleep without nightmares. When we all share a vision of the future. Often it's different than where things stand today.

This can create an organizational inertia changes hurt, and it's a leaders job often to find ways to break through the inertia and get the organization moving towards that vision. Again, boring words from ronald reagan when he said that if you can't make them see the light, yet better, make them feel the heat. Leaders admit the truth. They don't blame others they accept responsibility and assume full accountability. Leadership is not only about the selection of people But developing them as well giving them the freedom to grow into leaders themselves. I like that idea of rowing the leadership pool.

So Theodore Roosevelt once said the best executive is the one who has the sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done and the self restraint from meddling with them while they do it. Leadership and personal power collide as one when you as a leader recognize that you aren't merely attempting to get people to accept and follow your directions. Instead, you're really trying to seek people to grow into more leaders know Ralph Nader, the author of breaking through power says that I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. And so to become the credible leader and to up your executive presence. You need to keep this in the back of your mind. You need to change how you think of the concept of power.

Your successes demonstrated in the pool of leaders, you cultivate around You In our next lesson we're going to tackle the credibility issue.