Page 191 - Fundamentals of Management Myths Debunked (2017)_Flat

190 Part 3 • Organizing
Exhibit 6–4 Line versus Staff Authority

Executive
Director
Line authority
Assistant to the
Executive Director
Sta authority

Director of Director of Director of Other
Human Operations Directors
Resources Purchasing

Unit 1 Unit 2
Manager Manager

Human Human
Other Resources Operations Purchasing Resources Operations Purchasing Other

rare instances when the unity of command had to be violated, a clear separation of activities and
a supervisor responsible for each was always explicitly designated.

One boss or more?

Unity of command was logical when organizations were relatively simple. Under some
circumstances it is still sound advice and organizations continue to adhere to it. But advances
in technology, for instance, allow access to organizational information that was once acces-
sible only to top managers. And employees can interact with anyone else in the organization
without going through the formal chain of command. Thus, in some instances, strict adher-
ence to unity of command creates a degree of inflexibility that hinders an organization’s
performance.

Today’s View. The early management writers loved the idea of authority. They as-
sumed that the rights inherent in one’s formal position in an organization were the sole
source of influence, and they believed that managers were all-powerful. This assumption
might have been true 60—even 30—years ago. Organizations were simpler. Staff was less
important. Managers were only minimally dependent on technical specialists. Under such
conditions, influence is the same as authority. And the higher a manager’s position in the
organization, the more influence he or she had. However, those conditions no longer exist.
Researchers and practitioners of management now recognize that you don’t have to be a
manager to have power and that power is not perfectly correlated with one’s level in the
organization.
Authority is an important concept in organizations, but an exclusive focus on authority
produces a narrow, unrealistic view of influence. Today, we recognize that authority is but
one element in the larger concept of power.

how do auThoriTy and Power diFFer? Authority and power are often consid-
ered the same thing, but they’re not. Authority is a right. Its legitimacy is based on an
authority figure’s position in the organization. Authority goes with the job. Power, on
the other hand, refers to an individual’s capacity to influence decisions. Authority is part
of the larger concept of power. That is, the formal rights that come with an individual’s
power position in the organization are just one means by which an individual can affect the
An individual’s capacity to influence decisions
decision process.