Legitimate power is the right to exercise control over others by virtue of the authority of one's superior organization position or status.
In a bureaucracy, people gain legitimate use of power by their positions in which it is widely agreed that the specified person hold authority.
Advocacy groups must legitimate their courses of action based on invoking specific social norms and values.
Sociologists and organizational ecologists have shown that legitimation originates from consensus among certain agents (an audience) on which features and behaviors of an actor (a candidate) should be viewed as appropriate and desirable within a widespread system of social codes.
[1] An audience-based theory of legitimation posits that various social audiences develop expectations about what organizations can or should do and accordingly evaluate organizational action.