Have you ever met a leader without a leadership position?

I have. I’ve coached individual contributors that people followed because of their personal power. I wrote about the difference between position and personal power last week.

What can happen when a position powered individual and a personal powered individual meet? Hopefully they combine their strengths and create something great. Usually though, the position powered individual has their own personal power and builds solid relationships with their team.

However, it doesn’t always go that way. I’ve worked with people that had personal power under a ‘leader’ that didn’t and only relied on their position power. The outcome was the position power attempted to keep the personal power under their thumb. That did not go well. The personal power left the organization, and the team suffered. I’ve seen that happen on more than one occasion. Sad as it doesn’t need to be that way.

Can personal power be gained? Yes. Everyone has personal power. It may be buried at the present time, but it is there waiting to be tapped into. How? By peeling the onion. A few weeks ago, I wrote about why it’s important to know, access, and utilize your strengths. This relates to that as well.

Also, both expert and referent power (aka personal power) can be learned.