All language subtitles for SMcGurn Assignment 2 Personal Positional Power PMGT 840

Good day, my name is Stephen McGurn, and
the purpose of today's presentation is

to explore the concepts of personal and
positional power for the PMGT 840 class,

Managing Teams and Leading People, June
17, 2025.

In this presentation, we're going to
explore the differences in the

of personal and positional power.

Personal power can be derived based on a
person's unique qualities, whether it

be their expertise in a certain subject,
the integrity that they have and show

and demonstrate in their projects and
professional life, the charisma they

with the people around them, and their
ability to build strong bonds.

Personal power is a crude

you know, in various means.

Expert power, for example, is
demonstrated when people have unique

skill sets or very specific knowledge in
an area of, you know, their area of

expertise, whether it be in the
workplace or in consulting, or they

certain skills or rare experience that
are not common.

Reference power is more based on trust
and admiration or the personal influence

that people exert, highly reflective of
soft skills and emotional intelligence

and relationship building capabilities
that people have.

Information power, on the other hand, is
all to do with brokering knowledge and

information data and or the perspective.

that that knowledge holds.

So you may have an opinion on certain
aspects of the

industry that you're in. And it's not
just a question of the knowledge you

but how that knowledge is viewed through
the lens of whether it be consulting or

specific work through like engineering,
for example.

And all that is when the knowledge you
have is specifically not common. and not

a commodity.

So you're being brought in as an expert
in the field.

Positional power, on the other hand, is
authority that's granted through a

formal role or a title. So you might be
hired or promoted into, let's say, a

vice president role, which gives you
authority over a certain aspect of your

business or unit within the company, or
you might be elected to public office.

And through that title that you're
conferred, you have this authority to do

certain work, whether it's like you're a
judge and you have the ability to

decide. of people's guilt or innocence,
or if you're a member of Congress who's

elected and you can vote on bills,
authority is granted to you in the job

you have or are elected to.

So the sources of positional power could
be legitimate power. So like I

mentioned before, you're hired to be a
vice president or director of a certain

department, and you have power and
authority based on that. Or like I

before, a judge.

You know, a judge, the minute they're
sworn in, they have certain authority to

do within the scope of the role they
have.

Reward power, on the other hand, is more
if you're in a position where perhaps

you don't have authority to hire and
fire people, but maybe you're the

maker who grants salary increases or you
have control of certain bonus amounts

that people could be given.

Even a project manager may have access
to that, like a retention bonus that

recommend or they approve in order to
not lose a...

a key resource on a project. If you know
that the job market is hot, you might

say to everybody, you know what, if you
stay till the end of the project, I can

authorize $5 ,000 as a retention bonus.
That would be.

Reward power.

Also recognition.

Sometimes people aren't always motivated
by money.

Sometimes it's about a congratulatory or
a celebration for the end of a project

or solving a key problem or, you know,
something that the team was struggling

around and you have that ability to
bring recognition to a person or to a

and then some folks have a certain type
of power to grant people like if you're

a practice manager or a resource manager
and you control where people get

allocated you might be able to say hey
that was a really tough project you're

and i know you really want to do x type
of work next i'm going to give you that

type of project next so that's the type
of power that people can exert through a

role that they have so that they can
grant somebody a reward for their next

assignment which is in the form of a
really fun or interesting project or

something new that they've been meaning
to try.

Now, coercive power, on the other hand,
is sort of a demotivator from a power

perspective. It's the authority to
penalize or discipline team members. So

put somebody on a performance plan or,
you know, I mentioned higher fire

authority before. Maybe you have that
ability to fire people or to reorganize

team. All those can be viewed as
coercive types of power.

Sometimes it's required.

but it's also not necessarily the most
effective power to yield or exert over a

team.

Our class notes had a very effective
table that I've reproduced on this

You can see here the positional power is
usually temporary in nature, and it's

more of an opportunity to drive
compliance aspects of performance.

Whereas personal power, I feel, is a
more intimate type of power to have, and

it's also harder to earn.

It usually results in deeper trust,
partnership, and usually persists beyond

bounds of the project.

So positional power is in the moment
power that you have over people for a

limited amount of time.

Once those people are out of your sphere
of influence and no longer in your

project or in your department, you no
longer have power over them.

Personal power could be a leader that
people view as

motivational or inspirational.

And it usually is almost like putting
money in the bank that you could

later on because people have granted you
trust. They've granted you respect.

They've granted you all these things
because you have done.

well by them as well. You've built that
trust, you've earned that respect, and

now you have this relationship that both
parties are invested in. So that's the

difference, I believe, in personal and
physical power. One is transient, but

potentially more impactful. Another one
is more relationship -based and

persisting over time.

I was thinking about how the different
types of power can

be demonstrated in my day to day. I work
in IT consulting and manage a team of

architects and developers and project
managers.

And for me, I think there are points in
time on a typical project where you see

all the types of power sort of get
exerted. So if you look at a project and

kickoff, that is positional power,
customary for the executive sponsor to

formally introduce the consulting team
to the larger audience.

And it's not just a formality, it's a
crucial transfer of positional power

that... that stakeholder is granting to
the team being put in place and the

project manager.

being assigned to it. It's kind of like
a substitute teacher stepping into a

classroom. The principal will lend them
that authority to teach and manage even

though it's not quote unquote their
class.

So it's a type of borrowed power that a
customer grants to a consulting team or

a team of consultants that either
augment or fully are outsourced into a

within that client environment.

That typically allows us to immediately
begin our work with full authority to

progress because we have that borrowed
power that's been granted to us.

Now, if we look at the project plan,
again, that's the type of power,

power that controls the ebb and flow and
the rhythm of the project.

When we create that project plan, it
serves...

a lot of useful purposes like organizing
activities defining scope but also

wields a subtle but super potent form of
positional power we set due dates we're

outlining milestones we're creating
targets for people to hit and they're

usually outcomes if we You know, our
consequences if we don't hit those and

plans have to change and we have to sort
of exert some power to keep the project

in line.

That project plan will dictate the
rhythm and momentum of the work that

going to do.

Kind of like how an air traffic
controller, they don't fly the planes,

would have certainly a lot of influence
on where the plane go, how they land,

the timing of everything.

Certainly not somebody who's a pilot,
but certainly somebody who has that

ability to influence greatly.

how the pilots do their work.

Consultants are essentially in that kind
of position where they often will have

that ability to exert control over how a
project goes within the

confines of the power that's granted to
them by the client stakeholder.

Best practices are also a way that we
can leverage positional power through

expertise.

As consultants, we'll bring in either
unique expertise, whether it be IP that

bring or processes or just that.

history of having done it a million
times before and it grants a certain um

know credence and weight to our opinion
because it's not that we're discovering

it together for the first time we've
gone through it enough times to know

all the hazards are and the traps that
lie in wait kind of thing so

We also, you know, because we work
across multiple organizations and

with competitors and we compete against
competitors, we work with suppliers and

customers, we have that.

objective outside in view that we can
share with our clients and usually

eager to understand what that
perspective is and how they can

their you know those best practices into
their day -to -day operations of how

they run their business

And then, of course, there's data,
right, and the power of data. So we can

leverage the positional power through
that data expertise.

So clients will often operate on a sense
of how they're performing.

They don't really know, right? They lack
that hard data to back it up. So this

is a way where expertise power truly can
shine by bringing that data.

viewpoint and pulling out reports and
providing customers black on white math

say you're operating at 32 % efficiency
or there's a certain amount of

percentage of loss or waste in your
processes.

That type of data lends credibility.

It's not just a gut check that you're
doing where everybody can kind of have

some bias built into how they look at
things.

Then, of course, there's relationship
building. So as consultants, we

strive to be on site as often as
possible to have those impromptu

and build relationships and trust with
the clients as best we can. So

that ability, that proximity helps.

build that trust that helps build that
familiarity and you also are viewed as

kind of being in the trenches at that
working level with them and there's a

shared pain and going through projects
together that builds uh you know that

sort of trench warfare um and and
suffering together leads to the the

being sweeter kind of thing so um

That's another way that power can be
built is through relationships. And, of

course, if you look at steering
committees, that as well, there's a

amount of power in there, positional
power, but also builds relationships and

trust. That's where you demonstrate to
the stakeholders all the things that

you've built on and how you're driving
the project, all the efficiencies, all

the data. It all sort of comes to a
swell in those steering committees. So

that's another way that relational
power.

comes to bear in a day -to -day of a
consultant's life.

I hope this presentation on different
types of power exerted and the viewpoint

had on how consulting leverages the
different types of...

power that can be exerted with clients
and team members was informative to

everybody and that I hope hopefully that
some of it is helpful and your own

personal understanding based on my
viewpoints of personal and positional

Thank you for your time.