Supervisors' use of social power with graduate supervisees in speech-language pathology

This investigation discusses social power as an identifiable and measurable aspect of the supervisory process in speech-language pathology (SLP). This study examined the use of French and Raven's (1959) types of social power by 61 clinical supervisors with their 69 beginning and 69 advanced graduate supervisees from 14 university programs. Both supervisors' and supervisees' perceptions of supervisors' use of expert, referent, coercive, legitimate, and reward power were obtained with modified versions of the Rahim Leader Power Inventory (RLPI) (Rahim, 1988). The supervisors' perceptions of their use of the five types of social power with beginning supervisees were not significantly different from the beginning supervisees' perceptions. By contrast, the study yielded discrepant perceptions of supervisors' use of social power with advanced supervisees. Further, supervisors reported differential use of power with supervisees with different amounts of clinical experience. Yet, the perceptions of beginning and advanced supervisees did not differ relative to supervisors' use of any of the five types of social power. These findings can sensitize clinical supervisors to the sources of social power inherent in their practice.