Original subtitles

I hope this is working. I just did a mic check, so we should be good.

But hello, my name is Ashlyn Bambus, and this is just a quick overview of

personal versus positional power for PMGT 840, developing as a project

leader.

So what is the difference between personal and positional power?

The way that I kind of look at it is something personal power is stuff that

comes from within and positional kind of in the name is something that is given

to you. It's kind of external.

That's just the way that I look at it.

Personal power, though, is something that, you know, it's about the amount of

knowledge that you have, the skills that you have, your expert power, how

credible you are, you know, giving your track record of building trust.

Trusting relationships, how credible you are with the information that you have,

your information power, how valuable is the information or exclusive is the

information that you have is and how influencing you can be.

All this stuff in my mind comes from within.

Right. And this is usually a pretty stable place for someone to be in as a

leader, because this isn't really focusing on the title, but it's more so

focusing on the relationships that this person has and, you know, the stuff that

comes from within.

And then your positional power, just like kind of in the name, is the title

you hold or the role that you play.

You have more legitimate power in that sense.

You can give raises, bonuses. You can discipline your team members.

But this one could be a little bit more temporary, just given that it's based on

a role or a title that you have.

So, you know, if you have a job and you get fired from your job, well, you don't

have positional power anymore. Right. You may still have personal power, but

don't have positional power anymore.

So which power is better or should a leader kind of have a mix of both?

So I think that a leader should have a mix of both. I do think that is good,

maybe, you know, 70 -30.

towards more heavy on the personal side. I think it is really good to have

personal power, especially somebody who's a team member of, you know, having

leader have very good personal power because that allows your leader, your

manager, your PM, whoever it may be, and their team members to form really good

relationships that's built on, you know, trust and good communication.

You know, you can trust them that the information they give you is credible.

All the above. I think that's really important because at the end of the day,

it's about the personal relationship you have, I think.

But on the flip side, I think you still need someone with positional power

because it is important to have someone that can delegate tasks.

And it is important to have that authority when needed.

So I do think a mix is really good. But I honestly think that relationship means

a little bit more than the position that your leader holds.

Just my opinion.

So I think there's a lot of ways that you can improve personal power. I think

everybody has a little bit of personal power.

Just within just given how everybody knows different information, everybody

some level of trust, everybody has some level of relationships.

But I do think that there are different ways that you can improve your personal

power. The first one, which I try to do all the time, is attend networking

events. So it's kind of funny.

It's all about who you know. Right. So it's all about who you know. And if you

can attend these networking events, eventually, you know, if you're

and you come across someone who's a CEO of a company, well, the information that

they're going to give you is going to become very valuable to you. Right.

You're going to learn a lot from this person, not even just work related, but

outside of work, their habits, stuff like that. So I think it's really

about just.

building your network as much as possible because you never know where it

take you and how much information you're going to gain internally.

I also think just reading and learning as much as possible, not just at work

because you have to or at school because you want your degree.

But I think just outside of all that and your personal time reading, you know,

informational books, reading textbooks.

Even watching YouTube videos of just people teaching you about new things. I

think that information is so valuable in itself, just learning about anything.

I think it's a lot better than just scrolling aimlessly on a social media

rather than maybe reading a book. I think reading a book would bring a lot

personal power and a lot more improvement for longevity as a PM or

member at that.

I also think just living a healthy lifestyle.

I think when living a healthy lifestyle, you can show people that you're

determined to keeping good habits. So whether that's maintaining a diet, going

to the gym, going to school to further your education, that in turn turns to

influence. I think people see.

You know, see that rather than you just talking, oh, I diet, I diet, rather than

someone seeing you actually diet and seeing the results that come from it. I

think influencing by example is really important.

And I think, again, that comes from within. If you do something, someone is

apt to do it themselves.

Right.

And then I think another way, again, there's so many ways, but just the last

that I noted is just practice speaking up when silence is easy.

You don't need a position or a title to practice being a leader. You can always

stand up for what is right or what you believe in and just lead effortlessly.

Right. You can be the bottom of the totem pole in your team. But if, you

person above you says something and you're like, I didn't really like that.

can stand up for yourself and, you know, practice speaking up. And in turn,

that's going to make you a great leader. Having those uncomfortable

conversations and just just being a good communicator.

I think we learn how to communicate best in those tough situations. And I think

a lot of that comes from speaking up when, you know, silence is easy.

Again, totally a ton of more different ways to improve personal power, but I

think those are the best ways in my opinion.

And then lastly, does one type of power feed into another?

So I said this a couple of slides ago, but.

I always hear people say it's all about who you know, and that couldn't be more

true. In my opinion, personal power, I think, drives positional power.

So having those trusting relationships with about who you know, whether that's

at a networking event or just speaking up and maybe someone catches your name

you speaking up in a hard situation, they're like, oh, I really like them.

So, you know, having any relationship like that that has trust on the

of the relationship will help you step into a role that could lead into

positional power.

Another example, and this is how this is pretty awful, but.

Not in terms of PM, but just power in general. I think blackmail is also a

of personal power that can turn into positional power because, you know,

personal power, you're holding valuable, exclusive information on someone again.

not as a PM, not in a good way, but you're holding this knowledge.

And in turn, you can become positional over this person and have authority and

direct it to do something that you want this person to do. I think that is also

positional power. You're in a position giving your personal power to direct

someone.

So I do think personal power drives positional power. I think you need to

that internal drive, that internal valuable information to then in turn

positional power in a position of power. I think I've I've came across a few

program managers just in my experience where they have positional power, but

can tell that they don't have a lot of personal power. And that, in my opinion.

it's very obvious and it just doesn't make for the best manager because

lacking that, that trust or that relationship building factors. And it

just very like transactional between your manager. It shouldn't feel like

right? You should have that personal as well.

And here's just the reference. I just took it from the slides from our class.

So, yeah, that's just my little bit of personal versus positional power.

I'm sure I went over our five minute time recommendation, but yeah, I hope

enjoyed my slides and thank you.