A Study in Cultural Context on Leader Power Bases

In this study, Turkish Proverbs, which make the cultural emphasizes passed through “as is” without changing and is a part of Turkish language, are investigated and the cultural emphasizes on leader power bases are tried to be revealed. The proverbs which emphasize the leader power bases are categorized as legitimate, reward, coercive, expert and referent power. As a result of content analysis, legitimate power and expert power seem to be relatively more emphasized than referent and reward power bases; coercive power is seen to be almost not emphasized. Besides these cultural based findings, the second study, the data of which has been gathered from 64 middle level managers working in public organizations, shows that the perceptions of legitimate, coercive and reward power bases of the leaders are significantly more than the average value. In this context, the findings of both studies showed that the position power was seen to be come forward among the power bases of a leader.