Psychology of Leadership: Power, Motivation & Influence

Name: Psychology of Leadership: Power, Motivation & Influence
Rating: 5.0 (5 reviews)

Analyze power, identity, motivation, resistance, and ethical influence through doctoral-level leadership psychology.

Created byDr. Law Payne

Last updated 10/2026

English

What you'll learn

Analyze leadership as a psychological and relational process rather than merely a formal position.
Evaluate how power influences leader behavior, employee voice, organizational decisions, and ethical responsibility.
Explain how leadership identity develops through self-perception, social recognition, authority, and experience.
Apply self-determination theory to autonomy, competence, relatedness, motivation, and employee commitment.
Distinguish genuine motivation and internalized commitment from compliance produced by pressure or surveillance.
Diagnose cognitive, emotional, relational, and political forms of resistance within organizational systems.
Differentiate responsible influence from coercion, manipulation, and authority-dependent compliance.
Apply a doctoral-level framework to leadership cases involving power, identity, motivation, resistance, and organizational change.

Course content

1 section • 5 lectures • 1h 2m total length

Leadership Is a Psychological Process11:10
Explore leadership as a relational and psychological process rather than simply a position, title, or personality trait. Students examine sensemaking, trust, perception, attribution, identity, and the relationship between formal authority and genuine leadership.
Learning objective: Analyze how followers’ perceptions, interpretations, and social relationships contribute to the construction of leadership.
Power Changes the Leader and the System10:05
Examine legitimate, expert, referent, informational, and resource-based power. Students investigate how power affects attention, empathy, feedback, organizational silence, decision-making, and ethical responsibility.
Learning objective: Evaluate how different sources of power influence leaders, followers, communication, and organizational systems.
Identity—Who the Leader Becomes12:46
Examine leadership identity through identity claiming, identity granting, identity internalization, and reflected appraisal. Students explore the identity bubble, role engulfment, defensive leadership, and the importance of maintaining a flexible leadership identity.
Learning objective: Analyze how leadership roles, authority, social feedback, and organizational experiences reshape a leader’s identity.
Motivation—Why People Choose to Follow13:12
Apply self-determination theory to autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Students distinguish internalized motivation from externally controlled behavior and examine why organizational systems sometimes destroy the motivation they claim to encourage.
Learning objective: Diagnose motivation and resistance by examining psychological needs, leadership practices, and organizational conditions.
Influence, Resistance, and Responsible Leadership15:42
Integrate the course through an examination of credibility, identification, reciprocity, social proof, emotional framing, resistance, and ethical influence. Students apply a responsible influence framework and complete the Meridian leadership challenge.
Learning objective: Apply an integrated ethical framework to influence behavior while preserving employee voice, agency, and dignity.

Requirements

No formal psychology background is required.
An interest in leadership, organizational behavior, management, psychology, or workplace dynamics is recommended.
Learners should be prepared to think critically about power, ethics, motivation, and their own leadership behavior.
Professional leadership experience is helpful but not required.

Description

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

This course examines leadership as a psychological, relational, and organizational process. Students will move beyond surface-level leadership advice to analyze how power, identity, motivation, influence, and resistance shape the behavior of leaders and followers.

Analyze the Psychological Forces That Shape Leadership, Followership, and Organizational Life

Leadership is frequently presented as a collection of strategies, personality traits, and communication techniques. However, every leadership decision is also influenced by psychological forces that may remain invisible unless leaders deliberately examine them.

Power changes what leaders notice, how freely employees communicate, and whose knowledge influences organizational decisions. Leadership identity affects how people interpret authority, criticism, status, and disagreement. Motivation determines whether employees genuinely commit to the work or merely comply while supervision and rewards remain present.

Throughout this course, students will examine leadership through doctoral-level concepts presented in a practical and understandable format. The course combines psychological theory, organizational analysis, realistic examples, animated teaching graphics, and a continuing case involving Meridian Health Systems.

Students will explore leadership as a social process before examining different sources of power and their effects on organizational relationships. They will analyze how leadership identity develops through identity claiming, social recognition, reflected appraisal, and experience.

The course then introduces self-determination theory and its three central psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Students will apply these concepts to employee engagement, organizational change, professional identity, accountability, and resistance.

The final lecture integrates the entire course through an examination of influence, resistance, and responsible leadership. Students will learn to distinguish influence from manipulation, recognize resistance as diagnostic information, and evaluate how leaders preserve agency while exercising legitimate authority.

By the end of the course, students will possess an integrated framework for examining what leadership does to individuals, relationships, and organizational systems. They will be prepared to ask not only whether leadership produced an outcome, but how that outcome was achieved, whose knowledge mattered, who carried the consequences, and what the leader became while exercising power.

This course uses AI-assisted voice, visual, captioning, and video-production tools under the instructor’s direction. All instructional arguments, course design decisions, explanations, and academic interpretations were developed and reviewed by the instructor.

Who this course is for:

Doctoral and graduate students studying leadership, psychology, business, management, or organizational behavior.
Managers, executives, consultants, educators, and emerging leaders seeking a deeper understanding of human behavior.
Professionals responsible for organizational change, employee engagement, team leadership, or workplace culture.
Current and aspiring leaders who want to exercise power and influence more ethically and responsibly.
Learners who want more than surface-level leadership tips and are prepared to examine the psychological forces beneath leadership behavior.