Power, Authority, and Control in Leadership and Management

The video for Unit 5OS06, AC 1.2 examines how power, authority, and control function differently within leadership and management roles. Central to the discussion is French and Raven's typology of power bases — legitimate, reward, coercive, expert, and referent power — and the video draws a sustained distinction between those bases that derive from formal organisational position and those that are personal in nature. The treatment of these five sources sits firmly within the broader AC 1.2 requirement to explain the meanings of leadership and management and the interdependent nature of their functions.

Authority and control each receive dedicated attention as concepts related to, yet meaningfully distinct from, power itself. The video addresses management authority as something granted by the organisation and exercised within defined boundaries, and contrasts this with the way leadership authority can exist — and must often be earned — entirely outside formal positional structures. Control is examined as a core management function involving formal, systematic processes such as performance metrics, budgetary oversight and compliance monitoring, while the video also addresses how leadership approaches alignment and performance through a different mechanism altogether.

The interplay between position-based power and personal power threads throughout, with the video arguing that managers and leaders characteristically draw on different combinations of French and Raven's bases to direct behaviour, secure compliance or generate commitment. Discretionary effort — and the conditions under which it is or is not produced — is a concrete theme the video returns to when distinguishing managerial control from leadership influence. The overall scope maps directly onto the indicative content for AC 1.2 concerning the differing and contrasting roles of leadership and management in relation to power, authority and control.