Influence Of Social Influence

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 What is Leadership?

Leadership is presently one of the most talked about subjects in business and organizations. It is almost impossible to turn on the television, attend a conference, or read a newspaper without coming in contact with the term leadership. A search of the word leadership on EBSCO eBook academic collection from years 1938 to 2015 brought out 4,448 results. This shows that many books have been written on this subject matter.

Despite this fact, the term leadership is difficult to define. There is no generally acceptable definition of it. This is because the subject has always been addressed from different viewpoints.

According to Kelvin Kruse (2013), leadership has nothing to do with superiority

Some school of thoughts posits that leaders are born while others believe that leaders are made. The success of a leader, whether born or made, is dependent on his ability to influence others socially.

CHAPTER TWO: LEADERSHIP AND SOCAIL INFLUENCE

2.1 What is Social Influence?

It is seen that the definition of leadership is not complete without the term “social influence”. What then is social influence? Influence is the ability of a leader to communicate ideas, gain acceptance, and motivate followers to support and execute the ideas through change.

In psychology, social influence is defined as the process through which people make genuine changes to their behaviours and feelings as a result of relations with others who are seen to be similar, enviable or experts (Rashotte, 2006).

2.2 Sources of Social Influence

The sources of social influence include family, friends, music, movie, past/present events, peers, race, class/status, fashion, Facebook, education, religion, coworkers, fraternities, what people think, what people do, what people say, and what people do not say.

2.3 Types of Social Influence

There are five types of social influence in leadership. They

Connection

3. Reputation

4. Charisma

5. Peer pressure

2.3.1 Elevated Platform: This type of social influence has to do with the capability of a leader to influence other people by virtue of his position and authority. It can also be seen from another perspective, in which a person was in a position of authority before and later got promoted to a higher position. By virtue of that higher position, he is able to influence more people.

A relatable Nigerian example is Adams Oshiomole. He became the president of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) in 1999. While he was on that platform, his actions motivated the masses to resist irrational increase in the price of petroleum, thus making the standard of living bearable for Nigerians.

In 2008, he became the governor of Edo State. Although from an opposing party, he won the election, thus increasing the influence of his party, All Progressives Congress, in Edo State.

Another example is Nasir Ahmed Elrufai, the incumbent governor of Kaduna State. Before becoming the governor of Kaduna State, he was the FCT Minister. While he was in this position of authority, he was able to socially influence others.

As the governor of Kaduna State, he has a higher platform for influencing people. His political positioning plays an important role in how he relates with other