The 3SI Institute’s Positive Power and Influence framework is grounded in Harvard psychologist David C. McClelland’s research on learned needs, particularly the power motive and its “two faces” of personal and institutional power. In "Power: The Inner Experience" and related articles, McClelland demonstrated how mature, prosocial expressions of power underpin effective leadership and organizational performance, providing the core theoretical basis for treating power as a trainable, observable capacity rather than a fixed trait.

Building on this tradition, David E. Berlew who worked closely with McClelland (founders of McBer) and Roger Harrison translated motive theory and small group research into practical influence taxonomies and assessment tools. Their work on leadership, organizational “excitement,” and power failures in organizations, together with the development of the Influence Style Questionnaire and the Positive Power and Influence Program, established a behavioral science approach to understanding and improving how managers and professionals exert influence in real organizational settings.

The 3SI Institute’s contemporary research program is led by Dr. Sherri Malouf, whose work extends this lineage into modern leader–follower relations, participation, and power in organizations. Early empirical studies included an undergraduate project on employee participation, followed by an MPhil in Management Research at the University of Bath, “Management–Shopfloor Contact in a British Factory,” an intensive field study of how routine manager–worker interactions shape trust, perceived fairness, and informal influence processes. Subsequent doctoral research and later publications, including Science and the Leader–Follower Relationship, integrate these strands into a coherent account of how influence is a core life skill that makes or breaks organizational success.