Power, Authority, And Authority

The essays that comprise Traditional Classics on Leadership present varying notions of authority and of challenging authority. This is largely due to the fact that this manuscript is comprised of essays from 31 contributors, ranging from well-known political theorists to some of the more salient voices for individuality that the world has known. Still, there are some points of commonalities in these essays that present a synthesized viewpoint of the concept of challenging authority.

In Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury, authority is viewed as ruthless and the individual is portrayed as innocent. This is also emphasised in two related texts, Whose Life Is It Anyway? By Brian Clark, and Shawshank Redemption, directed by Frank Darabont. The themes of ruthlessness and innocence are exemplified throughout all three texts, through the concept of the authority and the individual.

Political authority over the bureaucracy is not in one set of hands, but shared among several institutions

According to Stojkovic, Kalinich, and Klofas (2015), power can be defined as “A construct that underscores that importance of how compliance among subordinates is achieved” (p. 288). Power can be at both a person and organizational level and there are five forms, including coercive power, reward power, legitimate power, referent power, and expert power (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2015). In contrast, authority is “demoting the compliance with particular directives essential for achieving a common or shared goal” (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2015, p. 290). The three forms of author include, traditional authority, charismatic authority, and legal authority (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2015). Power can become authority over time and authority is useful for when individuals must be supervised within an organization (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2015). I believe the foundation of criminal justice organizations is authority because everyone is trying to attain the same goal and be successful (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2015). If power is distributed among too many employees, then that could lead to role conflict (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2015). It is important to have supervisors with authority over

The bureaucratic era has been the traditional form of organization for more than a century, in simple terms described as hybridity, standardized operations and none flexibility inside the organization. The change to the post-bureaucratic is shown through personal influence, high trust relationships and the importance of the individuality of everyone (McKenna, Garcia-Lorenzo & Bridgeman, 2010). According to Kernaghan (2000) the characteristic of the bureaucratic era is “position power” and of the post bureaucratic “participate leadership”.

However, despite Max Weber’s theory that bureaucracies are like iron “iron cages” that are a efficient form of administration. Prior to modern government reform patronage, spoils, and bribery were just part of the political environment for Public Administrators. In today’s, modern government Public Administrators are hired based on the merit and technical qualifications that secure the individual can carry out the duties of the office. However, Public Administrators are forced to work in a hierarchical organization

The second model of bureaucratic dysfunction describes rational individuals working within an organization which is structured irrationally. It is difficult to control an individual’s self-interest in conjunction with the goals

Authority represents the power that lies within a managerial position and that gives the manager the right to assign the jobs to his subordinates and to expect that the assigned jobs would be completed by the subordinates. By the virtue of authority, the superiors are empowered to make their juniors and subordinates work. The organizational structure should clearly define the line of authority so that the overlapping actions might be avoided (Mahida).

There are five recorded sources of power which is influenced within organizations legitimate, coercive, reward, expert, and referent power. Authority is a position within an organization that is bestow to a person, and is not obtained from a form of leadership. Every organization has a leader throughout their corporation that controls some form of power within the business, yet the inspiration is produce through some form of respect.

Weber’s bureaucratic approach focuses on the importance of hierarchy by putting great emphasis on the use of rules, procedures and making impartial personnel decisions when managing. He put great emphasis on the jurisdiction, explaining that work should be “divided according to type and purpose” staying within the correct working unit just as the organization’s rules and laws would state (Milakovich, et. al., 2013, p. 146). A hierarchy would be established with a chain of command clearly identifying a system of super- and

We have an authority to benefit ourselves. Someone has to make resolutions and that is authority. Authority keeps society running properly and fixes problems, but authority is not always right. An opinion about this topic is that we should disobey authority if it’s wrong. The idea that disobeying authority when it’s wrong or you disagree with its choices is incorrect. Disobeying authority is never the solution but we should not blindly follow either. Authority is an important part of our society and it becomes useless if ignored. Authority is not always right though and people of authority as well as the general public should listen to the opinions and ideas of experts. If authority does not listen to experts or the opinions of the people, authority will begin to be looked down upon. If it continues and the current authoritative body needs to be replaced there should be a process for it.

With many occupations, power and authority go hand in hand. To better explain, individuals who have some form of authority are normally given some type of power so they are able to manage their job more efficiently. That being said, Power as a definition, according to the textbook, Criminal Justice Organizations Administration and Management, Power can be considered more as a tool that is used to get subordinates to do something (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2015, p. 288-290). Power can

The authority of an agent is the act which he is allowed or authorised to do by his principal, and which will bind his/her principal. Usually, the principal will only be bound by the act of the agent if the agent acts within his/her authority. There are two types of authority which an agent could rely on, namely actual authority and apparent or ostensible authority.

For my research on the principles bureaucratic organizational structure, I chose the Memphis Police Department, for which I have been employed the past twelve years. The father of bureaucracy Max Weber had some interesting, yet very controversial perspectives. Many concepts that can not and will not be tolerated in any organization or cooperation. An agency would do significant harm to themselves if they demonstrated an impersonal rule-based merit system, that is managed by rational law. Weber’s perspective wanted to keep the human element out of organizations entirely and have logical structures which are detrimental to any criminal justice organization which relies on human interactions(Cronkhite, 2013). He believed that the individuals that made up the bureaucratic organization, will be more efficient if their human differences are ignored. His models included a hierarchical structure of authority in an ordered system of superiors and subordinates, with individuals, were selected because of expert training, technical qualifications and career employees (Cronkhite, 2013). Though some of Weber tactics seem outdated and sterile, they still seemed to be used or modified in current organizational principles. The Memphis Police Department’s Mission Statement fundamentally disagrees with some perspectives of Weber as they are sworn to respond to the needs, rights, and expectations of all citizens(Memphis Police Department. ,2017). The Memphis Police Department employs four

The management can use this power to demote, transfer, fire or deny raises to their employees. The third power base of Position is legitimate power. This power stems from the level of hierarchy in which the subordinates report directly to the authority over them for decisions. Process Power controls the input and output of organizations to make sure that the processes are carried out efficiently and effectively within. Information power is the control of information or access to it within an organization. Information can be controlled to a ?need to know? basis and/or just limited to the upper management. This type of power compliments the legitimate power. Finally, there is Representative power in which an organization uses an individual to be there spokesperson both within the organization and when dealing with people outside of the organization.