I remember standing outside a conference room, heart pounding. I’d prepared for weeks. Then, mid-presentation, a senior VP interrupted and the conversation veered off. No one even noticed I’d stopped talking. I felt invisible, entirely at the mercy of titles and authority. It’s a lurch in your gut, that sense of being powerless. But here’s the truth: you already have power at work, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Real power in the workplace isn’t just a corner office or a big title. It’s a set of tools that rank-and-file employees use every day, often without realizing it. This article peels back the curtain on how people use power in the workplace by exploring ten distinct sources. You’ll see that influence, respect, and the ability to shape decisions can come from where you sit, who you know, and even how you phrase a simple question.
Why Does Power at Work Feel Out of Reach for So Many?
Most of us grow up equating power with position. The boss, the director, the partner. It’s legitimate power, the one source that comes from rank. And because that’s the most visible, we miss the other nine. I once asked a room of mid-level managers, “Who here has power?” Only two hands went up. When I changed the question to “Who here can get things done despite the org chart?” every hand shot up. That gap is where burnout lives. People feel like they’re pushing a rope because they only recognize formal authority. They overlook how people use power in the workplace through expertise, relationships, and sheer visibility. The social psychologists John French and Bertram Raven nailed it back in 1959: power is multifaceted. Their original list—legitimate, reward, coercive, expert, referent—was just the start. Later, informational, network, centrality, framing, and agenda power joined the roster. Only one demands a title. The rest? Yours for the building. When you don’t see them, you feel stuck. When you do, even a junior employee can shift a meeting’s outcome.
How Do Everyday Employees Actually Use Power at Work?
Think of power not as control but as capacity. It’s the ability to make things happen. After a decade of coaching and watching organizational politics, I’ve seen people use these ten forms in surprisingly simple ways. Some are deliberate, some accidental. All are learnable.
Take coercive power—the one we associate with punishment. A manager can fire someone; an employee wields it through silence. Slow-walking a project, reducing effort, or not speaking up in meetings are all acts of coercion. I’ve watched a single skeptical team member, by withholding input, steer a project into the ditch. On the flip side, reward power means granting benefits. Southwest Airlines turned this upside down when they let employees design new uniforms. Suddenly, a committee of 43 frontline staff held reward power over leadership: they prioritized comfort and washability, and the company’s engagement soared. That’s bottom-up reward power.
Expert power is the most accessible. When COVID-19 forced our whole university online, the most powerful person on campus wasn’t the dean. It was Brett Beyers, the tech guru. Everyone needed him. Expertise builds influence fast if you know how to share it without hoarding. Informational power is its cousin: knowing how things really work. The person who can tell you which VP needs a pre-meeting heads-up holds the keys to the kingdom. Nobody hands that out; you earn it by listening.
Network power is the old “it’s all about who you know,” but deeper. I once saw an accounts payable clerk stop a contract dead in its tracks because she was the bridge between three disconnected departments. She had no title, just connections. Centrality power—being in the flow—worked for her in two ways. Location power meant her desk was by the elevator; everyone saw her. Operational power meant she routed every invoice. Her nods or frowns dictated pace. And referent power? That’s the magnetic pull of being genuinely liked. A colleague of mine gets favors done faster than any VP simply because she remembers birthdays and asks about your dog. People want to say yes to her.
Framing power is linguistic artistry. A priest asking “May I pray while I smoke?” gets a blessing. “May I smoke while I pray?” gets a scolding. In the workplace, I once heard a project proposal rejected. The same proposal, presented the next day as a “risk containment initiative,” sailed through. Agenda power is even subtler: by deciding what gets talked about, you shape what gets resources. An intern I knew tabled a three-minute research finding at a staff meeting. Within a month, it became next quarter’s top priority. She didn’t have the title. She had the agenda.
The LoRCER, INC. Framed Agenda: A Map for How People Use Power in Workplace
Years ago, I started teaching a mnemonic to help people remember these ten sources: LoRCER, INC.’s Framed Agenda. It’s a clunky phrase that sticks. The capitals break down like this:
- Legitimate power (title)
- Reward power (giving benefits)
- Coercive power (punishment or withholding)
- Expert power (specialized know-how)
- Referent power (likability, charisma)
- Informational power (knowing how the org ticks)
- Network power (connections)
- Centrality power (being in the physical or operational center)
- Framing power (language that shifts perception)
- Agenda power (influencing what’s prioritized)
Here’s a small exercise. Draw a grid with three columns: Source, Current Use, Opportunity. Go through each of the ten sources. For reward power, jot down any way you’ve inadvertently rewarded a colleague by simply expressing genuine thanks—that’s power you used. For centrality, ask: does my desk location make me visible? Could I volunteer to sit in on a cross-functional call? One person I mentored realized her near-silence in meetings was actually coercive power; she was withdrawing engagement. She began intentionally offering one small insight per meeting, and within weeks people started looping her into decisions. Understanding how people use power in the workplace isn’t about playing politics. It’s about recognizing the levers you’re already pulling and using them with purpose.
Finding Your Expert and Informational Power When You’re New
You don’t need decades of experience. A new hire in my old team became the go-to person for a niche software within two weeks simply because she took the time to read the manual everyone ignored. Expert power, instant. Informational power came next: she figured out that our director always wanted data in a specific format before the Monday meeting. She compiled it quietly, and soon even senior analysts knocked on her cubicle.
The Quiet Strength of Referent and Network Power
It might feel shallow, but being liked is a legitimate power source. I’ve seen a manager known for gruffness get bypassed because a smoother, friendlier peer could marshall volunteers for a crunch-time push. Network power compounds this. Map your ten closest workplace connections on a napkin. If all ten do the same job you do, your network is deep but narrow. Add one person from finance, one from logistics. Suddenly you’re a hub. That’s how people use power in the workplace to break silos.
When Framing and Agenda Power Change the Game
A product team I worked with was locked in argument over feature X. The junior UX researcher simply reframed it: “What if the real risk isn’t missing this feature, but slowing down for the thing our users said they hate?” The room shifted. She didn’t command. She framed. And by putting that item at the top of the agenda, she exercised agenda power without anyone questioning her role. That’s the reality of how people use power in the workplace every single day.
FAQ: How People Use Power in the Workplace
Can you use coercive power without being mean?
Absolutely. It’s rarely about yelling. It’s often about pulling back. When a team quietly disengages from a project that leadership has mishandled, that’s collective coercive power. It signals a boundary. Used consciously, it can be a powerful message that something needs to change—not to punish, but to protect the team’s bandwidth.
What if I have no expert power to start with?
Everyone knows something nobody else does. Maybe it’s how to fix the printer, or the history of a client’s complaints. That’s informational power. Pair it with network power by introducing people who should know each other. Power doesn’t require a PhD. It starts with noticing a gap and filling it.
Is using network power manipulative?
It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Network power is about building genuine relationships. When you connect a struggling colleague to someone with answers, you’re using your web of contacts to make work better. That’s generous, not sneaky. The key is intention. Gather connections to lift others, and your influence grows naturally.
How do I know which power sources I already have?
Spend one day noting every moment you influence a decision, even a tiny one. Did someone ask your opinion? That’s expert or informational power. Did you change the meeting topic with a question? That’s agenda power. Did your laugh loosen up a tense room? Referent power. You’ll be surprised. Most people already use three or four of these without labeling them.
The day I stood invisible outside that conference room, I didn’t need a title. I needed to see that I had a voice and a question that could reframe the conversation. Next time, I asked, “What if we test this with the customer success team first?” That small agenda shift put me at the center of the next project. Power isn’t something you wait for. It’s something you uncover, piece by piece, in the place you already are.
Sources:
- French, J. R. P., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in Social Power. Institute for Social Research.
- Psychology Today. (2021, March 23). The 10 Sources of Power and How Anyone Can Use Them.
