-
Communal-Rational Authority, Control, and Self-Managing Teams: Implications for Leadership
Communal-Rational Authority and the Problem of Leadership
To briefly review, communal-rational authority is a form of authority that legitimizes a system of control common to the team-based environment. This system, concertive control, functions, as does any system, to regulate activity in the organization so that the firm can achieve its goals. Concertive control regulates team activity, and the team members accept this control because of its foundation in communal-rational authority.Three functions characterize any system of control. These three functions allow the system to be self-regulation, to stay focused on achieving the organization's goals. Additionally, our experience with traditional forms of management make these functions very familiar to us. The clearest articulation of these characteristics of a control system comes from the work of Tompkins (1990; also Tompkins & Cheney, 1985).
The first function is direction. This function consists of "categories of messages such as informing, advising, suggesting, even outright ordering, or issuing a statement of purpose, objectives, or core value premises" (p. 228). Through direction, workers can understand what they have to do to be effective, to meet the goals of the company. In the traditional organization, managers were very adept at providing direction, but the communal-rational authority of the team requires that direction occur in a complementary manner. The team has to direct itself based on its own values and normative rules. The team leader has to facilitate this process.
The second function is monitoring. In systems theory, this function is the feedback or deviation-counteracting loop in any process of control (Tompkins, 1990, p. 228-229). In the traditional organization, the supervisor monitored by checking the worker to confirm that the worker understood the directions and to evaluate how well the worker had complied with the directions. If a supervisor had directed the worker to ship ten boxes of computer parts by noon, that supervisor would confirm that the worker understood the order and then check the worker's progress at about 10 AM or so to see how well the worker was complying with the directive. But in a concertive environment, the team members themselves must monitor their own compliance with their directions. Again, the team leader must facilitate this process.
The final function is deviation elimination, the familiar dispensing of rewards and punishments (Tompkins, 1990, p. 229). This is the function that ensures that the control process works. In the traditional organization, the supervisor punished workers for not meeting the directions and rewarded workers for achieving work goals (remember deviation elimination does include both punishments and rewards). In the concertive system, the team members themselves must discipline their own behaviors. As with the other functions, the team leader must facilitate this process.
In a concertive control syste, with its communal-rational authority, the team leader faces a unique challenge. The leader cannot manage the team members in the traditional sense. That style of management does not fit the form of authority that exists in the team environment. Team members who have taken ownership of stron communal values and who have created powerful normative rules will resist a leader that tries to direct, monitor, and eliminate deviation in the same way as would a traditional supervisor.
The team leader must lead. The team leader must influence, persuade, inspire, and coach other team members. The team leader must practice what Drucker (1994) called the "liberal art" of management. The team leader must cultivate a creative process on the team, not a stultifying system of control. Team leaders cannot do these three essential functions by themselves. But these functions must still be accomplished for the team's system of concertive control to work. The team leader must find a way to ensure that the team accomplishes these functions in a manner that is consistent with communal-rational authority. That is one of many responsibilities that a team leader assumes. And that responsibility holds true whether the team leader was appointed by senior management, elected by the team, or emerged through the course of team interaction.
How can a team leader persuade the team to accomplish these three functions themselves? Leaders can learn how to do this if we re-think the function of leadership in teams of the requirements of communal-rational authority. What I will offer next are some initial suggestions as to how leaders can accomplish these essential functions in a concertive control system. I will also assert that by thinking of leadership and control functions in terms of communal-rational authority, we can re-organize our current knowledge of leadership into a more useful framework.
Go To Team Leadership and Directing | Return to Table Of Contents
Reprinted with permission from James R. Barker