The differences between power and authority are more than subtle. And yet, they will often lead to confusion when those involved have different views.
Authority is always given. An entity or group that has recognized authority can share it with individuals. The shared authority must be specific enough to be recognizable. It can, for example, be the authority to sign documents or to make decisions that affect other people’s careers.
Such authority becomes effective, if the person executing a decision on behalf of that authority also can exercise the necessary power.
The authority will be recognized as legitimate within a group when the authority is given by a body recognized by the group. It can be the group itself. Using the authority is embedded in a recognized process that the group knows and expects to be used. However, outsiders might have a different appreciation of this process.
Acceptance of authority goes beyond. It implies that those accepting the authority will also give it the power to execute its authority.
On the other hand, when executed, power is always taken.
Mutual understanding may create a relationship that establishes authority and allows power to be taken. Achieving mutual understanding requires a sense that the power as taken was freely given. Whenever one’s sense is, that the exercised power has taken away one’s power there is a high probability that the relationship will be damaged.
If the assumed authority is being contested, the exercised power will be perceived as one that seeks to use power over others.
Once such power has been exercised, those experiencing it find themselves confronted with the question if they can acknowledge the effect of the exercised power. And if doing so enables them to retain a sense of their own power. It’s about making a choice. Will one make oneself a victim of the exercised power? Can one accept the consequences of the exercised power as independent from who one is? It is the effort to keep one’s authority over who one is. The latter is work others can contribute to and yet something one can only do on one’s own.
A leader’s challenge is to earn authority within which power can be given to him while choosing wisely how and when to use it. The point is to never take power away or being clear as to why it is important to do it. It is about knowing when to take a given power and when not. But is also important to know when a lack of authority implies that no power is available, despite the ability to execute on it.
For many, this is astonishingly difficult to an extent that they’ll assume that the result of enforcing power over others legitimizes the authority they see themselves having.
