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Communal-Rational Authority, Control, and Self-Managing Teams: Implications for Leadership
Abstract
In this paper I argue that our considerations of leadership on self-managing teams must fit with the form of authority and type of control that characterizes self-managing environments. I describe the emergence of communal-rational authority in the team-based organization and the system of concertive control that this authority legitimizes. Effective team leaders in a concertive system must become skilled in facilitating three critical control functions:
- directing their fellow team members activity;
- monitoring their peers for compliance with the team's directions; and
- eliminating any behavioral deviation from the team's directions.
By framing team leadership in terms that are consistent with concertive control and communal-rational authority, we can more effectively teach leaders and organize our existing knowledge about leadership on teams.
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Reprinted with permission from James R. Barker