Acceptance of Authority

Like Fayol, Chester Barnard (1886–1961) had experiences as a top executive that shaped his views of management. Barnard began his career in 1909 as an engineer and translator for AT&T, becoming a general manager at Pennsylvania Bell Telephone in 1922 and then president of New Jersey Bell Telephone in 1927.

Barnard’s ideas, published in his classic book, The Functions of the Executive, influenced companies from the board of directors down. He is best known for his ideas about cooperation and the acceptance of authority.

Barnard proposed a comprehensive theory of cooperation in formal organizations. In fact, he defines an organization as a “system of consciously coordinated activities or forces of two or more persons.”

Acceptance of managerial authority (that is, cooperation) is not automatic, however. Ask people to do things contrary to the organization’s purpose or to their own benefit and they’ll put up a fight. While many people assume that managers have the authority to do whatever they want, Barnard, referring to the “fiction of superior authority,” believed that workers ultimately grant managers their authority.