quality:corruption
Referent power may be defined as 'the ability of a leader to influence a follower due to the follower's admiration, respect, or identification with the leader'. It has been suggested that the term referent power may reflect a misspelling, with a more appropriate label being reverent power. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines reverent as "showing great respect and admiration", whereas "referent" is typically defined as "the thing that a symbol stands for, or refers to". Bertram Raven states that " Referent power stems from the target identifying with the agent, or seeing the agent as a model that the target would want to emulate".