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Communal-Rational Authority, Control, and Self-Managing Teams: Implications for Leadership
Weber's Classical Forms of Authority
To gain a clearer understanding of the character of authority in the concertive, self-managing, system, I will contrast this form with Weber's (9178) classical forms of organizational authority, which is the foundation for how we think about authority and control. Authority, to review, refers to what organization actors accept as an agency for governing their behaviors. Any form of authority has certain claims to legitimacy, which justifies why actors should accept the authority or see it as having the power to influence their behaviors. Leaders take on particular leadership roles based on the form of authority operating in the organization. Weber identified three forms of legitimate authority that occur in the modern organization: charismatic, traditional, and rational-legal (or bureaucratic).Weber (1978) defined charismatic authority as the ability to influence others through exemplary or extraordinary character attributes. Weber associated charismatic authority with change because charismatic leaders often challenge accepted "rational" rules systems and seek to establish new, radically different systems. While not all concertive organizations begin with a charismatic founder articulating a company mission, many organizations changing to self-managing teams indeed draw on charismatic authority to justify both the change itself and the transition process to the new design.
For Weber, traditional authority rested on the "established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of those exercising authority under them" (1978, p. 215). Weber primarily associated this type of authority with the personal loyalty demanded of a patriarch: "Obedience is owed not to enacted rules [the rational-legal model] but to the person who occupies a position of authority by tradition..." (1978, p. 227). In the modern organization, we would normally see elements of traditional authority in the small, family-owned business. For example, the owner's daughter or son might come to lead the business through tradition (passing the company on the next generation) rather than through that person's own leadership abilities.
Weber (1978) defined rational-legal (or bureaucratic) authority as "resting on a belief in the legality of enacted rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands" (p. 215). Rationality, here, means that the rules are, as Weber wrote, "intellectually analyzable" (1978, p. 244). That is, in a rational rules system, organizational actors will understand the intent and purpose of the rules, use them to make sense of their daily work experience, and develop mechanical patterns of behavior in accordance with the rules. Leaders in a bureaucracy "manage" in the conventional sense. They ensure that the workers follow the rules.
For Weber, rational-legal authority was the most powerful form. He argued that charismatic or traditional organizations would eventually take on bureaucratic attributes. And, because of its system of highly rational rules, the bureaucracy was best situated to survive over time. For better or for worse, the bureaucracy would become the dominant organization, a point that we are very aware of today.
The concertive organization, with its focus on self-managing teams, represents something of a hybrid form of authority. That is, authority in the concertive organization reflects elements of the classical types that Weber originally described, particularly elements of traditional and rational-legal authority. But yet, this form of authority is still different.
Charismatic authority does have a role to play in the concertive organization; however, this role is mainly to serve as a legitimating agent for change. For example, a senior level manager, or even an owner, often emerges as the charismatic champion of the change within organizations revitalizing themselves into self-managing teams. This person, or perhaps a small group, becomes convinced that the company must make the change to teams and works almost unceasingly, relying on individual personal charisma and position, to advocate and to help bring about the change (Sheridan, 1991). Of particular importance, the charismatic champion of the change to self-managing teams probably was very involved in developing the company's mission statement, which sets in motion an essential framework of values for the team.
The championing of the new design by a senior executive and subsequent development of the company's mission statement also influences workers to accept the change and adopt its concepts. Company executives see the many popular advocates of self-managing teams as legitimate information sources and consider their claims about teams as legitimate reasons for making the changin design. Company employees then gain legitimacy to the change to teams because of the corporate champion's position and advocacy of the new, important, and productivity enhancing organizaitonal design.
The model of charismatic authority that the team concept presents here is in line with Weber's classical view. Charismatic authority influences and helps bring about the design change in an organization converting to self-management. Thus, charismatic authority may serve as both a catilyst for change and a lagitimizing agent for the transition to teams. However, once the change to teams has occurred the importance of charismatic authority diminishes. Other legitimizing agents begin to play a more important role. In fact, Weber asserted that once charismatic authority had influenced changes in an organization and had, essentially, "run its course," the organization would tend back toward a rational, rule-based system of authority. I will return to this point later, but first I will examine the influence that traditional authority has on the concertive organization.
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Reprinted with permission from James R. Barker