Expert Power:

Being an expert does not necessarily mean that one needs years of study under your belt to be able to talk with authority. Unless that is you need those years of study for your chosen profession. Experience also brings expertise. I am talking about "expertis" not time spent in a job, thou this too can be mistaken as expertise. A person can spend years in a job and learn nothing about how to be the best at their job, they are just an automaton treating the previous day the same as the last.

An expert is one that strives to improve their knowledge and work practice in their chosen profession. Of course a Doctor, Nurse, Engineer, Psychiatrist and other professions demand a base level of formal training. But even this base level of training does not make one an expert. Though they can be treated as an expert because their training has given them the position of one, thus people treat them according to their training. (Did you see what is in that sentence)

The key to being an expert is to have others that title you as an expert. Thus experts are made by others and not made by them self.

When others in your profession sees you as an expert and treats you as one, this places the responsibility on you to act as an expert and little scope for diversifying into other fields becomes difficult. Because the expert is highly respected for a specific field and that respect is not transferable to another field. Thus the expert will be dragged back into the expert role of that specific field.

The down fall of being an expert:

• When it goes to one's head and taking one's self too seriously.
• Not accepting alternative advice or explanations from others, because you are the expert.
• May create fear in other, thus making the expert seem unapproachable.
• Hinders job change, and diversification.
• Being prone to strong heuristics in judgment calls.
• Being seen as the only person that can perform a specific function.
• Suffer tall poppy syndrome. Others may be sharpening their knives.

Although there are some pitfalls that one needs to watch out for, and if those pitfalls are not an issue. There is great responsibility and prestige that comes with that title of expert.

Expert Power is deemed a personal power because the power is not borrowed from outside the self. Power that is derived from an external source is not Personal Power and once the source is removed, or the person removed from the source, power vacates.