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Management & Leadership vocabulary · Leadership Styles and Skills

Referent power

Meaning in management & leadership, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In management & leadership, referent power means: Influence based on other people's admiration, respect or desire to identify with a person.

In Turkish: özdeşleşim gücü

How it is used

Use when personal identification is the source of influence rather than formal position or technical knowledge.

Example sentences

  1. The founder retained referent power even after leaving the executive role.

    Personal identification can sustain influence after formal authority ends.

  2. Her referent power encouraged volunteers to support a project outside their normal duties.

    People respond to the person they respect rather than to an instruction backed by rank.

Common collocations

  • build referent power
  • referent power in leadership
  • leadershipThe ability to guide a group of people towards a shared goal, and the act of doing so, through example, influence and clear direction rather than authority alone.
  • lead by exampleTo guide people by behaving in the way you want them to behave, rather than only telling them what to do.

More terms: Leadership Styles and Skills

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