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DELEGATION, RESPONSIBILITY, AND AUTHORITY

The extent of their responsibility is one reason why managers, particularly those heading large corporations, are so highly paid. But it is doubtful that even a $2 million a year salary would lure an intelligent person to a top post if there were no way that person could influence the performance of all those people on whom his or her own success hinges. This brings us to a most important concept: organizational authority.

AUTHORITY

If a person is expected to do something for the organization—assume responsibility for the satisfactory completion of a task—the organization must supply the resources required. Management does this by delegating authority along with tasks.

Authority is the limited right to use the organization's resources and channel the efforts of some of its people to perform tasks.

AUTHORITY

Authority is delegated to a position, not to the individual who happens to hold the position at any time. This is expressed by the old military saying that you salute the uniform, not the person. When an individual changes jobs, he or she loses the authority of the old job and picks up that of the new. For example, even though a Procter & Gamble sales manager is on a higher level of management when promoted to brand manager, she could no longer issue orders to her former subordinates in the sales department. However, because delegation is not possible unless there is a person in the position, it is common to speak of delegating authority to the individual.

AUTHORITY: Limits of Authority

•According to our definition, authority is the limited right to use resources and command people. Within an organization these limits are usually specified through written policies, procedures, rules, and job descriptions. Or they may be communicated orally to the subordinate. Persons going beyond these limits exceed their authority, even when doing so is absolutely necessary to perform delegated tasks. A worker authorized to operate only a certain machine, for example, would be exceeding his authority by using one assigned to another worker if his broke down.

AUTHORITY: Limits of Authority

•In general, the limits of authority grow wider as one moves up the organization. But even the authority of top managers is limited. The chairperson and president of a large, public company are accountable to stockholders. They must answer to those stockholders if expenditures seriously exceed the overall budget. Nor can top corporate officers give themselves a raise, a use of organizational resources, without the board of directors' approval. There also are many external limits to authority. Laws prevent managers from knowingly delegating duties that are likely to seriously harm workers.

AUTHORITY: Limits of Authority

•Much of a manager's authority is derived from the traditions, mores, cultural patterns, and folkways of the society in which the organization functions. People obey the orders of a superior partially because it is socially acceptable behavior to do so. These factors limit authority as well as support it. Managers cannot delegate authority that conflicts with laws or cultural values, at least not for long. This means, of course, that they cannot delegate duties requiring such authority and expect them to be carried out.



AUTHORITY: Authority and Power

•It is important to realize, however, that limits placed on authority, either by the organization or its society, often are widely exceeded in practice. To better understand this, let us briefly examine the difference between authority and power.

•Authority and power are often confused with each other. Authority is defined as a delegated, limited right, inherent in a position to use organizational resources. Power, in contrast, is the ability to act or the capability to affect a situation. One can have power without having authority.

•Authority, in other words, determines what a person occupying a particular position has a right to do. Power determines what he or she really can do. The ways in which power is used can have a positive or negative effect on the organization. Later we will learn that leadership is heavily dependent on power and people often use power to pursue organizational objectives more effectively.

•The number of people reporting directly to a manager is his or her span of management. If span of management is not limited appropriately, confusion results and the manager is overburdened. Potential confusion in authority can be reduced by following the principle of unity of command—a person should receive orders from and account to only one superior directly.


Date: 2016-01-14; view: 767


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