Authority and Communication in Organization

Authority refers to the decision-making power to guide others' actions. It is the relationship between superiors and subordinates. The superior formulates and communicates decisions that are expected to be accepted by subordinates. Subordinates expect decisions made by superiors and decide personal actions according to these decisions. In all the influence modes, authority mainly distinguishes the individual behaviors of participants in the organization from their behaviors outside the organization, and it is authority that gives the organization a formal structure.

Authority includes the actions of superiors and subordinates. Only when the actions of both parties are certain to happen, does there exist an authoritative relationship between them. The behavior patterns of superiors include orders and expectations, while the behavior patterns of subordinates are influenced by an uncertain factor or dominated by decision-making standards.

In maintaining the relationship between superiors and subordinates, the restraint of superiors is as important as the obedience of subordinates. Leaders are like bus drivers. If he can't take the passengers where they want to go, they will get off. Drivers don't have much say in the direction of driving.

The most remarkable feature of subordinate role is that it establishes a behavior acceptance range, in which subordinates are willing to accept the decisions made by superiors. The scope of acceptance is influenced by many factors. Voluntary organizations with unclear goals have the smallest acceptance range, while military organizations have the largest acceptance range.

It is necessary to create an environment in the organization to make authority an effective tool to achieve organizational goals, rather than taking authority itself as an end, and at the same time not stimulating the impulse of superiors or subordinates to exercise power purely for power. This is a basic management task.

Generally speaking, the psychological process of participating in coordination behavior is not completely deliberate or conscious, and most behaviors that produce coordination are largely habitual or reflective. Coordination can be carried out in two senses, one is procedural coordination and the other is operational coordination.

Authority is widely used as a tool to coordinate group behavior. We should pay attention to the three functions of authority: first, it strengthens the individual's responsibility to those who exercise authority; Second, it ensures the application of expertise and skills in the decision-making process; Thirdly, it helps to coordinate activities.

The analysis of all kinds of organized behavior shows that organized behavior will occur when each collaborator sets a selection standard for himself and makes his behavior depend on the behavior of others.

Constraint means is a more specific factor that makes organizational authority accepted by people. First, social constraints (Hawthorne experiment); Second, the psychological differences between individuals (personality of leaders and followers); Third, the organizational purpose (the primary constraint factor); Fourth, based on the constraints of the relationship between work and economic security and economic status; Unwilling or disgusted to take responsibility.

There are four general methods to avoid or solve the conflict of authority: first, the traditional command is unified, that is, everyone accepts the command of the only superior; The second is the unity of command in a narrow sense, that is, a person can accept the orders of several superiors, but when there is a conflict, he only obeys the command of one superior; Third, the division of power. Fourth, the post hierarchy system.

A formal organization is what people often say is a tangible organization with formal rules and regulations. Authority in a formal organization can be achieved in two ways. The first is the authority to control groups, which can be used to establish and implement formal organizational plans; The second formal organizational plan itself stipulates the chain of power and the division of tasks needed to carry out organizational work.

Informal organizations refer to interpersonal relationships that affect organizational decision-making, but they are either inconsistent with organizational procedures or ignored in formal procedures. The healthy and orderly operation of any organization is inseparable from informal organizations. For example, every member of a new organization must establish informal relations with colleagues before becoming a full member. On the one hand, formal organizations can't be so specific that they don't need the supplement of informal organizations. On the other hand, formal organizations can only play a role if they really limit the development of informal relations within the organization.

Communication refers to the process that one member of an organization passes the decision-making premise to another member. Without information communication, the collective can't influence individual behavior and obviously can't be organized. Because there is no information exchange.

Its main function is that communication is absolutely necessary for an organization. The effectiveness of specific information communication methods also largely determines the distribution of decision-making function in the whole organization and what kind of distribution this function should be in the organization.

Information exchange in an organization is a two-way process. It includes not only transmitting commands, information and suggestions to the decision center, but also transmitting decisions from the decision center to other parts of the organization. Information communication is a process that runs through the whole organization.

Communication can be divided into formal communication and informal communication. Formal communication system mainly refers to the information communication channels and their media established through careful planning. For example, the media of formal information exchange include oral contact, memos and letters, document circulation, records and reports, and manuals. Informal communication is built around the social relations among members of an organization, and it is a supplement to formal information communication. Personal motivation has a considerable influence on the development of informal communication system.

An organization is not an organism, and its memory can only be the collective memory of the participants in the organization. Because participants' memory is inefficient and unstable, organizations need to "remember" manually, which is far more necessary than individuals, that is, to save knowledge in documents and wikis.

Then we need to think about the difficult problems: what kind of information should be recorded, how to classify and file all kinds of information, where to store the files, and so on.

Training will enable members of the organization to make satisfactory decisions on their own, instead of endlessly exercising power or making suggestions. It is feasible to use training instead of exercising authority and making suggestions as a means of controlling lower-level decision-making.

For a large number of decisions with the same factors, training can be used in the decision-making process. Training can provide trainees with the factual factors of decision-making, the frame of reference of thinking, a "recognized" working method and the value elements on which decision-making is based.