The Prime Minister's Powerful Better Half Mini Case

The Prime Minister's Powerful Better Half Mini Case

Ho Ching is currently the chief executive officer of Temasek Holdings, a company in Singapore that focuses on industrialization. Since her time at the company, she has been ranked number 18 on the list of Asia's Most Powerful Business People and number 24 on Forbes's list of the World's Most Popular Women. Her influences in power and leadership are the main reasons for her success.

Ho Ching is an influential leader because of her education, experience and connections. She influences by using several tactics such as rational persuasion, inspirational appeal, and legitimizing tactics.

Her experience, connections, and education influences power. She started influencing power early in her career. The fact that she is married to the prime minister of Singapore, making her the daughter-in-law of one of modern Singapore's founding fathers, allows her to use legitimizing tactics. Ho Ching also uses rational persuasion by publicly disclosing the details of the company's performance, and inspirational persuasion by the proposal to arouse enthusiasm for opportunities for Asian growth.

Ho Ching uses all of the five resources of power: expert, referent, coercive, reward, and legitimate. She uses legitimate power because she has the authority to demand or request results due to her position as chief executive officer. She is able to use expert power because of her education and experiences that she has gained through the years. Because of her position, she can use coercive power to get results in a negative way, or she can use reward power to get results in a positive way. Referent power refers to the influences she has due to the relationships she has between the leader and the follower. Because of the results the company has made since her time as chief executive officer, she has gained a trust from the leaders and followers of the company. She can use that trust to influence power.