Another excerpt from The Silent Musician: Why Conducting Matters.
Power often works through fear and can force people to act against their will, through status or physical strength. But authority functions through respect and persuades others to respond voluntarily simply through personal influence. If conductors ever have to ask musicians to watch or listen to them it is normally too late to have any effect. The cliché of tapping the stand with the baton in order to attract attention has long since become outdated, and an orchestra will never deeply engage with you purely because of a conventional hierarchy that some might assume exists. In as creative and human field as music, it is authority–not power–that is more successful in creating a genuine performance of quality. In the long run, even if it looks less impressive, control without oppression accomplishes far more. Power damages relationships, and its trappings rarely last for ever. Natural authority, one that stops short of being authoritarian, empowers others and lasts a lifetime. Those blessed with it stay in charge for longer than those whose leadership is circumstantial.
Mark Wigglesworth
A Few Reasonable Words 