Legitimating Authority: CG-2

The notion of authority is inseparable from the idea of «the management» as the human face of the organization. The organization must control work authoritatively. Without control via legitimate authority, it is difficult to speak about «management» at all. Even one person working alone needs self-management based on self-control: but organizations contain large numbers of people. Their management is notoriously difficult: both for the managers and the managed.

The Rationale for Authority

In any advanced society where freedom and liberty are valued, rights to interfere with another person in social life should be highly restricted. How is it that organizations can legitimately give employees unequivocal rights to interfere and control others, rights that cannot  normally be questioned i.e. outside some formal procedure activated by serious abuse of the right.?

The elemental CG1-expectations permit an enormous variety of possibilities that need restricting. So staff, even at the lowest levels, require legitimate powers to instruct, guide, &/or inhibit other staff; and these powers require unambiguous rationales viewed as reasonable by all.

More.

There are no policies or over-riding directions at CG1. Each employee sets directions-CG1⁴ that are relevant to their own position in the organization. Each may or may not understand and may or may not take notice of wider policies and goals. If we add the release of human creativity to this stew, then there is much potential for chaos, misunderstanding, mishaps, wrong turnings, blind alleys and tunnel vision. There is also the likelihood that compliance with legal or company regulations to deal with corruption, safety, customer handling, social responsibility and so on will be forgotten or given too low a priority.

Control v Influence

The organization requires legitimate control over duties and activities to ensure, so far as possible, that:

• Staff do whatever is necessary in any situation.
• Staff do not do what they should not do.
• Staff find ways to pursue organizational strategies, policies and regulations.

So «narrow» achievement (e.g. a strategic outcome, or a successful product launch) is not the only goal of management. «Broad» achievement is also about maintaining standards, retaining good staff, and complying with laws and regulations.

While the management perspective may desire control, and it is perfectly appropriate to speak of «management control», work has an internal and experiential dimension that makes it utterly impossible to fully control. From a personal perspective, the best that any human being can do is to influence another.

There are 6 rationales for legitimate authority and the influence that flows from it. The importance and difficulty of control has resulted in 12 specific instruments of control : i.e. each rationale generates two versions—a stronger and a weaker instrument. But first: we specify the rationales.

The 6 Rationales

Each of the Dyads defines a distinctive rationale that legitimates authority as follows:

Practical rationales:

■ Handle workflow (CG2¹)
■ Resolve problems (CG2²)
■ Make progress (CG2³)

Psychological rationales:

■ Structure process (CG2⁴)
■ Shape behaviour (CG2⁵)
■ Induce compliance (CG2⁶)

Implications for Management

The management is provided with legitimate power in the form of assigned authority as an aid to influencing. Formal authority generally increases with hierarchical status.

The organization must be precise in designing the hierarchy so that authority is appropriately and openly allocated to each and every post, and employees recognize the authority of others.

Read more about how to specify authority relationships.

Implications for Employees

Exerting formal authority requires social skills, and appreciation of the nature and limits of the particular authority assigned. It is not mechanical or about brute force. Personal influence via authority is both an art and a skill that can be learned. Each employee must learn how to wield authority in a style that:

• suits their personality, &
• fits with the organization's culture.

The strongest types of formal authority (e.g. line-managerial) make far more socio-emotional demands on the person than milder forms (e.g. monitoring). Probably only parenting comes close to the intensity and impact of line-managerial relationships. More details here.

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• Specifying authority is one thing.
• Using it to exert influence is another.

Originally posted: 20-Oct-2011