Power and Influence in Leadership: A Discussion from the View of Collective Action

Power and influence are important factors and are closely linked to leadership and our acceptance of it. However, in the relatively recent systematic examination of these phenomena and their emergence and implementation, at least some facets remain underexamined. The focus is primarily on psychological incentive systems. In our article, we want to argue that this form of consideration is important, but not sufficient and sometimes even remains one-sided. This is due to the restriction of the incentive systems themselves, which primarily change the consequences of actions for the guided one or are related to the guided person’s lack of access to knowledge, for example. We, therefore, want to argue in favour of an extension of the theory and clarify as a core thesis why the power and influence of leadership also go hand in hand with the simplification of collective actions, fairness and cooperation. We want to realise this project at all levels on the basis of arguments from action theory (primarily decision and game theory).