Content uploaded by Josep M. Rosanas
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Josep M. Rosanas on Aug 11, 2018
Content may be subject to copyright.
1Editorial: Developing Perspectives
3 Tom Campbell
Should Managers Talk About Rights?
13 Jeremy Hall and Michael Martin
Developing and Assessing New Technology: Popper,
Monsanto and GMOs
23 Christopher Cowton and Gerhard Zecha
Doing it Right Instead of Twice: A Popperian Approach
to Management Decisions
35 Domènec Melé and Josep Rosanas
Power, Freedom and Authority in Management: Mary
Parker Follett’s ‘Power-With’
47 Sheelagh O’Reilly
Developing the Freedom to Disagree: A Manager’s
Philosophical Diary - Part 5
57 John Kaler
What Is a Business?
Reviews
67 Paul Griseri
Kirkeby’s Management Philosophy: A Critical Reflection
72 Leonard Minkes
The Evolution of Modern Management by E F L Brech
73 Emma Bell
Learning from Saturn by Saul Rubinstein and
Thomas A Kochan
Volume 3 Number 2 2003
Reason in Practice
74a Station Road East Oxted Surrey RH8 0PG UK
Tel and Fax +44 (0)1883 715419
Journal website: www.managementphilosophers.com
© Copyright Reason in Practice Ltd 2003
Philosophy of Management
formerly Reason in Practice
35Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
Power, Freedom and Authority in
Management: Mary Parker Follett’s ‘Power-
With’
Domènec Melé and Josep M Rosanas
Power is one of the key ideas in management, and so is the concept of authority. However, most studies on
power are rather instrumental, dealing with the place of power in management, and how to achieve it.
Less attention has been paid to the essential concepts of power and authority themselves in management
thought and how they have evolved. To clarify these concepts, and to better understand the notions of
power and authority in management and their proper use in organisations, this paper goes back to one of
the pioneers in management thought: Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933). She had an original vision of
power, holding that genuine power is not ‘power-over’, but ‘power-with’. At the same time, she defended
an authority based on function and responsibility. We explain what her account implies for management
in theory and practice.
For many researchers power is one of the key ideas in Business Management.1 In the last few decades
the importance attributed to the topic has grown and it now occupies a central place in most
textbooks on management in general, and in organisational behaviour in particular. And yet, in
spite of the interest in power and the extensive literature on the subject, there is still much confusion
about the concept. Sometimes, related words such as authority, influence, control, domination and
leadership are taken to be interchangeable; and the fact remains that there is ambiguity in their
practical use, and that there are no generally accepted definitions. In the literature, most studies of
power are instrumental, relating to the place of power in management and how to achieve it. Less
attention has been paid to the central concepts of power and authority in management thought and
their evolution.
Perhaps the time has come to return to the pioneers in management thought and draw on their
contributions to these topics. We hope that by doing so this paper can help to clarify those concepts
and the meaning of power in management and its proper use in organisations.
One of these pioneer management thinkers is Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933)2 who wrote on
management in the 1920s and the early 1930s3 and is now being rediscovered. She was recently
This is an extended version of a paper delivered at the conference Developing Philosophy of Management -
Crossing Frontiers St Anne’s College, Oxford 26-29 June 2002 organised by Reason in Practice: The Journal of
Philosophy of Management in association with the Forum for European Philosophy.
1 See, eg, D McClelland and D Burnham ‘Power is the Great Motivator’ Harvard Business Review (March-
April 1976) reprinted Jan-Feb 1995 pp 2-11; J Pfeffer and G Salancick The External Control of Organizations
New York, Harper and Row 1978; and J Pfeffer Managing with Power: Politics and Influence in Organizations
Boston, Harvard Business School Press 1992.
2 A short biography of M P Follett can be found in A Gabor The Capitalist Philosophers. The Geniuses of
Modern Business - Their Lives, Times and Ideas New York, Crown Business 2000 pp 45-64.
3 Her main works in management are: Dynamic Administration. The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett
(edited by H C Metcalf and L Urwick) New York-London, Harper & Brothers 1940 (our quotations); a 2nd
ed was published by Pitman, London 1973. Freedom & Co-ordination. Lectures in Business Organization,
edited, with an Introduction, by L Urwick New York-London, Garland Publishing 1987 (originally published
by Management Publications Trust, London 1949). They will be mentioned respectively as DA and FC. She
was not at first interested in management in itself. Her first book was titled The Speaker of the House of
Representatives, where her interest was in looking at the political process, including cooperation, one of her
key subjects. Her next book was The New State: Group Organization, the Solution of Popular Government
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania State University Press 1998 (originally published by Peter Smith, Gloucester, Mass
1918). This book was more ambitious in scope, but again it was not on management as such, but more on
Political Science and an expression of how democracy should work for the citizens. Afterwards she wrote
Creative Experience London, Longmans Green and Co 1930 (originally published in 1924) which is a
psychological approach to society with some philosophical discussions. These last two books will be
mentioned as NS and CE respectively.
36 Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
called ‘the prophet of management’, in a book of her most celebrated writings on management
published with comments by today’s authors.4 Introducing the book, Peter Drucker remarks that ‘If
Mary Parker Follett is known today at all, it is for her ‘Constructive Conflict”.5 But he goes on to
mention three more postulates as essential elements in her contribution to management. First, that
management is not exclusive to business firms, but is applicable to all kinds of organisations;
second, that management is not a ‘tool box’, but a (rather complex) ‘function’; and third, that
‘reinventing’ the citizen6, or recognising citizens’ rights (and, in the organisational context, workers’
rights) is vital.
We submit that there is another crucial point related to those mentioned by Drucker: Mary Parker
Follett’s conception of power and authority. Like modern authors, she considered power as central
to management and in all social relations.7 But her approach differs from that of some more recent
thinkers in that she considers how to develop power rather than learn where to place it.8 She talked
of developing power-with rather than taking power-over.
We therefore propose to explore the conception of power and authority in Mary Parker Follett’s
writings, and what it means for managers.
From ‘the Giving of Orders’ to the Science of Cooperation
Mary Parker Follett came to management from her interest in social reform and changing the world
for the better. She began by trying to improve the way schools worked; and soon realised that the
business environment needed improvement too. She wrote about Political Science and found that
her ideas were applicable to the business world, and were ‘good’ for the business firm besides being
‘good’ for the workers. It is easier to understand Mary Parker Follett if we take these origins into
account, because, as we will show, power and the use of power are crucial elements in her
conception of management.
She was a contemporary of Frederick W Taylor, considered conventionally to be the ‘father’ of
management theory, and of the ‘Scientific Management’ movement. But Taylor’s concept of power
is either entirely absent or only implicitly treated9. The same can be said of Henry Fayol10, who
represents to some extent a different strand of thought within what is called ‘scientific
management’. Fayol does not mention the matter of power explicitly either; but he deals implicitly
with a sort of ‘moral authority’ when he enumerates the elements that enable managers to make a
distinctive contribution: health, intelligence, moral qualities, general education and administrative
knowledge. The absence of these qualities in a person, of course, makes the exercise of authority
impossible. Something similar could be said of Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick11 two other
pioneers of management thought.
Taylor presents an implicit ‘naïve’ theory of authority: the boss (or his assistants, or his consultants)
knows better than anybody else, and should scientifically ‘analyse’ what his subordinates do, and
then give them the appropriate orders. It is important that the subordinates do not think; they
should just carry out exactly what they are told to do.12
4 P Graham (ed) Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management. A Celebration of Writings from 1920s
(Introduction by Peter Drucker) Boston, Harvard Business School Press 1995
5 P F Drucker ‘Introduction Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management’ loc cit 1995 p 4
6 Loc cit pp 4-7
7 ‘What is the central problem of social relations? It is the question of power; this is the problem of industry,
of politics, of international affairs.’ (CE p xii)
8 Literally she says: ‘… our task is not to learn where to place power; it is how to develop power.’ (CE p xii)
9 F W Taylor The Principles of Scientific Management Mineola, Dover Publications 1998 (original edition:
New York, Harper and Brothers 1911)
10 H Fayol Administration Industrielle et Générale Paris, Dunod 1916
11 Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick Papers on the Science of Administration New York, Institute of Public
Administration, Columbia University 1937
12 See Taylor loc cit chapter 2.
Domènec Melé and Josep M Rosanas
37Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
Taylor’s conception of an organisation and of the human beings working in it was rather simplistic:
the efficiency of blue-collar workers was rather low, and could be improved by thinking about it
‘scientifically’. ‘Scientifically’ meant calculating the energy necessary to do a given job, studying that
job in some detail to see if it could be made simpler, and then calculating the time needed to rest
every now and then so that one could continue to work indefinitely, and so on. Workers could then
be persuaded to put this into practice by being told that doing so would mean a substantial increase
in pay, possibly through a new scheme based on incentives. So the basis of the ‘science’ of
management was more physical science than any social science; and the behavioural assumption was
the mechanistic view that people prefer to make more money than less. It is important that workers
do not do any thinking at all.13
Mary Parker Follett was probably quite familiar with Taylor’s thought and the ‘scientific
management’ movement was extremely successful at the time. Nevertheless, her concept of
management differed substantially from Taylor’s and that of most of her contemporaries. In contrast
to Taylor, she had no interest in the amount of energy spent, or in the breaks that should be taken by
the workers to avoid becoming too tired. Her interest was in how to get people to cooperate. And
although she embraced the expression ‘scientific management’ she gave it a completely different
meaning. For her it meant the science of cooperation between people14 and this approach is very
closely related to her conception of authority and power.
Follett complained that political scientists usually confuse power, control and authority15 and tried
to clarify the terms. According to her, ‘power might be defined as simple ability to make things
happen, to be a causal agent, to initiate change.’16 This definition of power is not far from some
modern authors, like Ivancevich & Matteson, who, in one of the leading management textbooks,
state ‘Power represents the capability to get someone to do something; influence is the exercise of
that capability.’17 The concept of control is closely related to power:
All control means a sense of power. The athlete has control over his muscles, and this brings him a
satisfying sense of power. Control of circumstances, all achievement, gives the same gratification. One
might go further and say that all activity brings a sense of power, certainly successfully coordinated
activity does.18
Genuine and Legitimate Power: ‘Power-With’
When she clarified the notion of power, Follett made a remarkable distinction: between ‘power-
over’ and ‘power-with’. Giving orders in Taylor’s approach is exercising a form of ‘power-over’,
something she saw and we see being constantly striven for in the world of business. Managers and
unions alike seek ‘power-over’. Follett claimed that it was right for workers to resist management
having power-over them, and for employers to resist union efforts to invert the situation and get
13 ‘... This seems to be rather rough talk. And indeed it would be if applied to an educated mechanic, or an
intelligent laborer. With a man of the mentally sluggish type of Schmidt it is appropriate and not unkind,
since it is effective in fixing his attention on the high wages which he wants, and away from what, if it were
called to his attention, he probably would consider impossible hard work’ (Taylor loc cit 1998 p 19).
14 Explicitly she writes: ‘...cooperation is not…/…merely a matter of good intentions, of kindly feeling. It
must be based on these, but you cannot have successful cooperation until you have worked out the methods of
cooperation, by experiment after experiment, by a comparing of experiments, by a pooling of results... It is my
plea above everything else that we learn how to cooperate...’ In ‘Management as a Profession’ (1927) in:
Michael T Matteson and John M Ivancevich (eds) Management Classics Chapter 2 (Third Edition) Plano,
Business Publications 1986.
15 ‘Those political scientists who use the words power, control and authority as synonymous, are confusing our
thinking.’ (DA p 111)
16 DA p 99
17 J M Ivancevich and M Matteson Organizational Behavior and Management (Fourth edition) Chicago,
Richard D Irwin 1996 p 362
18 CE p 181
Power, Freedom and Authority in Management
38 Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
power-over them. Power-over is an inadequate goal, in Follett’s view, for at least two reasons,
although she was not wholly explicit about them. First is a moral reason underlining a legal
distinction. She showed that the two prepositions ‘over’ and ‘with’ ‘are used to mark a distinction in
law: you have rights over a slave; you have rights with a servant.’19 The second reason is that power-
over is not effective; power is usually taken to mean power-over, she noted, and people resist, do not
want to be led and do not want to be patronised.20 As an alternative she proposed developing
‘power-with’:
So far as my observation has gone, it seems to me that whereas power usually means power-over, the
power of some person or group over some other person or group, it is possible to develop the
conception of power-with.21
But what did Follett mean by power-with? One might think it has to do with giving consent to
management or government, or reaching a consensus by which somebody exercises power, or
perhaps giving power to the other party to bring about equal power in negotiations. Nothing in fact
could be further from the idea: ‘Equal power means the stage set for a fair fight, power-with is a
jointly developing power.’22 To clarify the distinction, Follett made another: between ‘persuasion’,
which is typically the way most of us try to get power-with, and ‘convincing’. The demagogue, the
ward boss, the labour leader and the crowd orator all lead and try to ‘persuade’. Convincing is a
different thing. It is bringing people to obey what she called the ‘law of the situation’ instead of
arbitrary orders. ‘‘And that is always our problem, not how to get control of people, but how all
together we can get control of a situation.’23
The law of the situation, as Follett defined it, is the union that naturally exists between two parts
with different interests. Talking about ‘the present situation’ of conflict between British coal
operators and miners in the 1920s , she said:
Miners and operators are bound together; until this is fully recognised and acted upon, they will not be
able to control their lives. Their interests are not the same, but indissolubly united. It is one situation
not two. Only when it is treated as one situation will the authority of the situation appear.24
She went on to state that ‘the present-day respect for facts, for scientific methods, is the first step in
this method of seeking the law of the situation, and already we see that it has influenced the whole
tone of industrial controversy.’25
Power-over, in other words, is coercion while power-with, on the contrary, is coactive. And, being a
‘jointly developing power’, it aims at ‘a unifying which, while allowing for infinite differing, does
away with fighting.’26
The concept of ‘power-with’ contrasts, then, with the usual meaning of power, ‘power-over’. Follett
accepted this, but argued that ‘genuine power is power-with, pseudo power, power-over.’27.
According to her, ‘the only genuine power is that over the self – whatever the self may be.’ She
explained that by adding:
When you and I decide on a course of action together and do that thing, you have no power over me
nor I over you, but we have power over ourselves together….the only legitimate power we could have
in connection with John Smith is what you and John Smith and I could develop together over our
three selves.28
19 DA p 101
20 DA p 103
21 DA p 101
22 DA p 115
23 FC p 24
24 CE p 187
25 DA p 105
26 DA p 115
27 CE p 189
28 CE p 186
Domènec Melé and Josep M Rosanas
39Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
For Follett ‘power-with’ is not only the genuine power but also the legitimate power. But in what
sense was she talking about legitimacy? We dare to say that it is ‘psychological legitimacy’. She
argued that from the social psychology of her time. It is made clear for instance, in this statement:
Power is the legitimate, the inevitable, outcome of the essential life-process. We can always test the
validity of power by asking whether it is integral to the process or outside the process.29
This sort of legitimacy leads her to formulate statements which reflect a certain moral approach. She
affirmed, for instance: ‘The power of the strong is not to be used to conquer the weaker: this means
for the conquerors activity which is not legitimately based, which will therefore have disastrous
consequences later; and for the conquered, repression.’30 In a more expressive way, by paying
attention to the manner in which orders are given, she said:
What happens to a man, in a man, when an order is given in a disagreeable manner by a foreman,
head of department, his immediate superior in store, bank or factory? The man addressed feels that his
self-respect is attacked, that one of his most inner sanctuaries is invaded. He loses his temper or
becomes sullen or is on the defensive; he begins thinking of his ‘rights’ – a fatal attitude for any of us.31
In a similar way, she reported that one man said: ‘It is all right to work with someone: what is
disagreeable is to feel distinctly that you work under someone.’32 (Italics in the original) More
categorically she added: ‘executives as well as workers object to being under anyone.’33
Although Follett did not employ ethical arguments nor accepted universal principles, however the
concept of ‘legitimacy’ assumed permitted her a sort of moral language. Significantly she claims
that ‘neither pay nor work bestows the right to power-over another. We can have power only over
ourselves.’34 Having power-over someone is a matter of fact, but Follett held that no one has a right
to do so in her strong sense of the term where ‘one has power over a slave’.
She also questioned ‘the moral right to power which has not been psychologically developed’. She
thought the latter was ‘an empty ethics; it is an ethics, alas, which we have to combat daily in
politics and industry.’35 In the introduction to Creative Experience she seemed to have found yet
another moral argument for legitimising ‘power-with’ and, as a consequence, coactive control: the
personal enrichment of those sharing this power, although she did not develop this intuition:
Genuine power can only be grown, it will slip from every arbitrary hand that grasps it; for genuine
power is not coercive control, but coactive control. Coercive power is the curse of the universe;
coactive power, the enrichment and advancement of every human soul.36
Jointly Developing Power and The Law of Circular Response
‘Power-with’ is a ‘jointly developing power’ between two parties. Using this joint power to overcome
the difficulties of the practical world is obviously more effective than neutralising part of the power
of one party as it struggles with another. The case of bargaining is a good example:
As wages are coming more and more to be fixed by cost-of-living charts, by time-studies, by open
books on cost of production, bargaining is more and more eliminated or, I should say, subordinated. It
might be put thus: bargaining becomes limited by the boundaries set by scientific methods of business
administration; it is only possible within the area thus marked out.37
29 CE p 193
30 CE p 189
31 DA p 57
32 DA p 62 Very often she expresses her thoughts through anecdotes or by using the voice of others. That is
what she does on this point.
33 FC p 36
34 CE p 187
35 CE p 192-193
36 CE p xiii
37 DA p 105
Power, Freedom and Authority in Management
40 Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
The meaning of ‘jointly developing power’ becomes clear if we relate it to her entire thought and,
especially, her concept of ‘circular response’ or ‘circular behavior’. As she put it:
We ought no longer to give adherence to the doctrine of the ‘consent of governed,’ because the relation
between governors and governed, between experts and people, must follow what seems to be the law of
all relations, that of circular response.38
Follett’s doctrine of circular response or integrative behaviour is expounded mainly in the book
Creative Experience, which is complex. What follows is our summary of it in relation to our purpose
in this paper.
To explain ‘circular response’, we start with a physical example Follett herself used: ‘A good example
of circular response is a game of tennis. A serves. The way B returns the ball depends partly on the
way it was served to him. A’s next play will depend on his own original serve plus the return by B,
and so on and so on.’39 Another example, slightly more complex, is the activity of a boy at school.
To some extent what he does can change what the school does but, at the same time, the school can
change what the boy does. Considering this dynamism of human action, one can say ‘the activity of
a boy going to school may change the activity of the boy going to school.’40
These examples help show how in social relations there are lineal responses as well as circular ones.
Follett suggested that there are ‘three fundamental principles to guide us in our study of social
sciences’:41
1 That my response is not to a rigid, static environment, but to a changing environment.
2 That my response is to an environment which is changing because of the activity
between it and me.
3 That function may be continuously modified by itself.
It follows, for instance, that ‘employees do not respond only to their employers, but to the relations
between themselves and their employers. Trade unions respond, not only to capitalism, but to the
relations between them and capitalism.’42
A Reaction Is Always to a Relation
According to Follett, a reaction is always a reaction to a relation. That is the essence of the circular
response and the ‘the basic truth for all the social sciences.’43
Her notion recalls in some respects Hegel’s account of the master slave relationship in being both
dynamic and one in which power-over proves ultimately empty – just as a master-slave relationship
in business produces resistance and dysfunction.44 However the notion of the ‘circular response’ is
related above all with the Gestalt school of Psychology, which has been called the doctrine of the
wholes, as she herself recognised.45
The Gestalt theory46 was the outcome of concrete investigations in psychology, logic and
epistemology. Before 1910 psychology had been a naïve imitation of natural sciences, attempting to
reduce every complex phenomenon to simpler ones, the elements which were supposed to make up
the whole. The Gestalt theory tried to achieve a meaningful integration of experimental and
phenomenological procedures while giving primacy to the phenomenal.
38 CE p 111
39 DA p 44
40 CE p 73
41 CE p 73
42 DA p 45
43 CE p 63
44 We appreciate this suggestion from Nigel Laurie.
45 See CE p 50 and pp 91ff.
46 The rough meaning of the German term ‘Gestalt’ is holistic patterns or configurations.
Domènec Melé and Josep M Rosanas
41Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
According to Gestalt, it is the interaction of the individual and the situation in the sense of a
dynamic field which determines experience and behaviour47. The founder of the school, Max
Wertheimer (1880-1943), presented in a series of lectures in 1913 a new psychological approach
based on the hypothesis supported by experimental evidence that mental operations consist mainly
of ‘wholes’ rather than the chains of associated sensations and impressions emphasised by other
psychological researches of the day. Eleven years later, he stated that the fundamental ‘formula’ of
the Gestalt theory might be expressed in this way: ‘There are wholes, the behaviour of which is not
determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves
determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole.’48 In this sense, the whole affects the way in which
parts are perceived: ‘the whole is more than the sum of its parts’.
In management, this means, for instance, that when a manager deals with his or her colleagues he or
she will not fully understand their behaviour if he relies on merely the impressions he gets and
psychological information about them. He must also take into account the situation as a whole
created by the relationship between the manager himself and his colleagues. Thus a colleague who
appears to be ‘negative’ in attitude may be reacting to what he experiences as an oppressive
relationship. This could have been brought into being unwittingly by the manager’s own behaviour
now and in the past. Such behaviour could include giving orders from a position of power-over as
opposed to power-with:
The arbitrary foreman may indeed get hoist with his own petard. I knew a case where a workman
reacting against such a foreman deliberately carried out a wrong direction instead of taking it back to
the foreman and asking about it, and thus wasted a large amount of material in order that his foreman
should be blamed for the waste. Thus the man who demands a blind obedience may have it react on
himself. When the accomplishment of a department is the result of a feeling of joint responsibility on
the part of all concerned, that accomplishment is likely to be of a higher grade.49
The positive converse can also apply. Indeed, we might say managers pay unconscious tribute to
Gestalt when they talk of creating a climate in which people will work well.
Integrating Power and Freedom
Follett rested her ideas on a philosophical base that she did not hesitate to describe as ‘the most
fundamental idea of philosophy’. That is ‘a constant mode of self-generating as though…a perpetual
law of unifying to which the free activity submits itself, law and freedom each the entelechy of the
other.’50 In a similar way she affirmed that ‘the most profound truth that philosophy has ever given
us concerns not only the relations of the parts, but the relations of the parts to the whole, not to a
stationary whole, but to a whole a-making.’51 These psychological and philosophical influences
from German Idealism current at the time without doubt conditioned her thought. Because those
subdued under power also want to have ‘power-over’ or, at least avoid being overpowered, a conflict
between two opposite tendencies arises, the one to seek power and the other to be free. As a result:
‘What we have to do is to discover how to integrate the power trend in an organisation with the
freeing trend.’52
First of all, we need to reduce power-over. Follett argued that this can be achieved in three ways: ‘(1)
through integration, (2) through recognising that all should submit to what I have called the law of
the situation, and (3) through making our business more and more a functional unity’.53
47 About Gestalt theory see, eg, Barry Smith (ed) Foundations of Gestalt Theory München, Philosophia Verlag
1988.
48 An address before the Kant Society, Berlin, 7th December 1924: Über Gestalttheorie, Erlangen 1925.
Translation by Willis D. Ellis published in his Source Book of Gestalt Psychology New York: Harcourt, Brace
and Co 1938. Reprinted by the Gestalt Journal Press, New York 1997. Available on: http://
www.enabling.org/ia/gestalt/gerhards/wert1.html (2003).
49 FC pp 21-22
50 CE p 75
51 DA p 91
52 CE p 184
53 DA p 106
Power, Freedom and Authority in Management
42 Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
Integration is the way Follett proposed for solving conflicts.54 She believed there were three ways of
dealing with conflict: domination, compromise and integration. Domination is the victory of one
side over the other; it is not usually successful in the long run. Compromise means each party giving
up something in order to have peace. Integration is looking for a solution where the desires of both
parties have a place, and neither side has to sacrifice anything. She thought that ‘only integration
really stabilises’,55 although she recognised that integration is not possible in all cases.56
If you accept the authority - or ‘law’ - of the single situation and look for a union of interests,
power-over vanishes. ‘There is no power-over in the single situation, therefore the aim should
always be to create the single situation, that is, to make an employer and employee, landlord and
tenant, or whatever the case may be. But we shall never succeed if we conceive the single situation as
produced by coincidence of interests; this only twists and distorts the facts and that way lies failure -
in the long run. The single situation is produced by the union of interests.’57
Functional unity is related to the fact that modern businesses are intricately interwoven. Follett,
who talked in a similar sense of functional unity, functional whole and integrative unity, believed
that business needs joint power. This not only reduces power-over but leads to a basic concept in
Follett’s philosophy of business. In her own words: ‘we are seeking an integrative unity as the
foundation of business development.’58
An effective way to develop power is to favour co-operation. Follett insisted on the need for co-
operation and, in this sense, did not reject what is called ‘industrial democracy’ based on employee
representation. However, she was not enthusiastic about it. Instead, she emphasised that ‘the fact of
management has seen that an enterprise can be more successfully run by securing the co-operation
of the workers.’59 She encouraged a real co-operation and she thought this co-operation had to be
learned by experience:
We believe there can be a science of co-operation. By this I mean that co-operation is not, and this I
insist on, merely a matter of good intentions, of kindly feeling. It must be based on these, but you
cannot have successful co-operation until you have worked out the methods of co-operation - by
experiment after experiment, by a comparing of experiments, by a pooling of results.60
Co-operation is related to integration and integration brings about the ‘integrative unity’ Follett
sought. So achieving unity in business organisations is crucial: ‘Unity in the sense of peace is our
primary object - you can get peace at any moment if your sledge hammer is big enough - but
because we are seeking an integrative unity as the foundation of business development.’61
Considering power-with as the only genuine and legitimate power has important practical
implications in management. For many years, much attention has been paid to the division of
power and how to achieve power. Follett was not interested in that, but instead she studied how an
organisation can generate it.62 That was consistent with her response to the question of conferring
or sharing power. She stated: ‘I should say that if we have any power, any genuine power, let us hold
on to it, let us not give it away. We could not anyway if we wanted to. We can confer authority; but
power or capacity, no man can give or take. The manager cannot share his power with division
superintendent or foreman or workmen, but he can give them opportunities for developing their
power’63 (italics in the original).
54 DA pp 31ff
55 DA p 35
56 DA p 36
57 CE p 188
58 DA p 77
59 DA p 172
60 DA p 123.
61 DA p 77.
62 DA p 111
63 DA pp 112-113
Domènec Melé and Josep M Rosanas
43Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
Authority
Follett frequently used the expression ‘confer authority’. But what did she mean by authority? The
concept of authority, and especially political authority, has a long history; Plato, Aristotle,
Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, to mention only a few of the
classic thinkers, all dealt with it. In the twentieth century one of the finest analyses of authority was
carried out by Max Weber. Was Follett merely repeating what other authors had said when she
talked about authority in business? Or, on the contrary, was she quite original in her account? We
are inclined to think the latter, at least up to a point. Let us explain why.
The authority that was generally ‘accepted’ in business organisations at the beginning of the
twentieth century was based on property rights or on managerial position. This authority was
exercised, as Follett put it, by ‘the giving of orders’ and what was expected from workers was
nothing other than blind obedience. Sometimes that led to ‘arbitrary commands.’ These, she
pointed out, ignore one of the most fundamental facts of human nature, namely, the wish to govern
one’s own life.64 As a result, they break initiative, discourage self-reliance and lower self-respect.65
Follett thought that there were different kinds of authority but not all of them were a sufficient basis
for giving orders: ‘I certainly believe in authority - of the right kind. And I am sure that I have not
emphasised sufficiently the careful, painstaking study that is necessary if we are to anticipate how
orders will be received.’66
Function, Responsibility and Authority
After observing businesses carefully she concluded that ‘the businessman is more concerned with the
sources than with the organs of authority.’67 Having authority by holding a post or a certain
position within an organisation is not the same as having real authority in virtue of which people
obey. In practice, ‘we find authority and responsibility with the head of a department, with an
expert, with the driver of a truck as he decides on order of deliveries.’68
According to Follett real authority comes from function and experience rather than from a static
position: ‘In the study of business organisation we are saying that authority is not all at the top, that
authority goes with function.’69 In the same sense she added: ‘We have always to study in a plant
how far the authority of the management is real, how far it comes from fulfilling function, from
knowledge and ability, and how far it is a nominal or an arbitrary authority.’70 She was especially
concerned about the latter, because of the way arbitrary commands and the exaction of blind
obedience stifle initiative, self-reliance and self-respect.71
For Follett, function, and therefore authority, implies capacity; and capacity is developed by the
experience acquired from carrying out a function. This experience entails responsibility. Quoting a
friend she said ‘authority should go with knowledge and experience; that that is where the obedience
is due, no matter whether it is up the line or down the line. Where knowledge and experience is
located, there, he says, you have the key man to the situation.’ In the same train of thought, she
stated: ‘I am not responsible for anything which has not its roots in my experience or my potential
experience, that is, the experience I am in a position to acquire by reason of my function.’72.
Furthermore, authority has to come with capacity, otherwise it would be disastrous: ‘To confer
authority where capacity has not been developed is fatal to both government and business.’73
64 FC p 18
65 FC p 22
66 DA p 69
67 DA p 156
68 DA p 148
69 DA p 205
70 DA p 111
71 FC p 22
72 DA pp 150-151
73 DA p 111.
Power, Freedom and Authority in Management
44 Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
So, ‘function, responsibility and authority should be the three inseparables in the organisation….If,
then, authority and responsibility are derived from function, they have little to do with the
hierarchy of position.’74 She believed that ‘arbitrary authority’ in management should disappear,
and according to her it was actually disappearing at that time. She presented the giving of arbitrary
commands as an old fashioned practice and proposed four rules for giving orders:
♦Depersonalise orders through a joint study of the situation
♦Replace orders as far as possible by teaching the techniques of a job
♦Give reasons for an order and
♦Discuss the instructions with those who are to carry them out.
She summarised these rules by saying ‘the one who gives an order should try to bring those ordered
into the situation.’75
If they are to develop responsibility workers have to feel interest and, to some extent, they have to
become partners. She dared to say ‘interest, responsibility, power - perhaps here is an indissoluble
partnership.’76
Another way to develop responsibility among employees is to foster co-operation. The worker does
not have to be a passive receptor of orders, but someone with initiative and responsibility. A
manager who ignores the importance of taking responsibility also ignores a crucial aspect of the
human condition, since ‘this taking of responsibility is usually the most vital matter in the life of
every human being, just as the allotting of responsibility is the most important part of business
administration.’77
Did Follett then think of authority as something informal that arises from function, experience and
capacity? It is probable that she did, but at the same time she held that there is also a formal
authority which is ‘conferred’. Thus, the challenge of good management is giving authority to those
who have real responsibility for their function. So developing responsibility has to come first:
You should never give authority faster than you can develop methods for the worker taking
responsibility for that authority. We may find also that we should not give workers authority without
some corresponding stake in the business.78
Consequently, Follett was in favour of a ‘cumulative responsibility’ and against an ‘ultimate
responsibility’. In fact, she thinks that final responsibility is ‘partly an illusion.’79 : ‘You will not find
the pot of gold at the foot of that rainbow. The best method of organisation is not that which works
out most meticulously or most logically the place for ‘finals’ and ‘ultimates’, but that which provides
possibilities for a cumulative responsibility, which provides for gathering together all the
responsibility which there actually is in the plant, which provides for making the various individual
and group responsibilities more effective by the working out of a system of cross-relations.’80
Conclusion: ‘What Perhaps May Be’
The position Mary Parker Follett took on most issues is neither descriptive nor prescriptive in the
strong sense of these terms. Rather, she proposes a new way: ‘what may be’:
Some people tell me that they like what I have written on integration, but say that I am talking of what
ought to be instead of what is. But indeed I am not; I am talking neither of what is, to any extent, nor
of what ought to be merely, but of what perhaps may be.81
74 DA p 147
75 FC p 27
76 DA p 110
77 DA p 64
78 DA p 110
79 DA p 159
80 DA pp 159-160
81 DA p. 34
Domènec Melé and Josep M Rosanas
45Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
However she usually presents innovations and describes behaviours which would encourage
improvements. So it is the reader who is enabled to perceive what should be done. That is exactly
the case with power and authority.
She distinguishes between power and genuine or legitimate power, which is none other than what
she calls ‘power-with’; that is, a jointly developed power. Power-with is closely related with
integration and unity. A wider study could find the Hegelian idea of ‘interpenetration’ in the core of
Follett’s thought on integration and the idea of ‘power-with’. But she cannot be said to go all the
way with Hegel, especially in her last writings. It seems to us that she puts together ideas from two
major philosophical schools: idealism and pragmatism. Probably Mattson is right in affirming that
‘Whereas John Dewey had rejected Hegelian idealism for pragmatism already by the 1900s, Mary
Parker Follett embraced both pragmatism and the idealism of Hegel and her own contemporary,
Josiah Royce.’82 But our definitive conclusion on that point would need further elaboration.
Peter Drucker acknowledges that Follett was ‘forgotten’ for many years and suggests that it was
because her thought was ‘subversive.’83 This may be so, at least if you take ‘subversive’ in its
etymological sense from Latin subvertere (as sub-, vertere vers- ‘turn’). She turns some current
concepts into new ones, among them power and authority. Her concept of power-with was
innovative indeed. So was her concept of ‘functional authority’.
Regarding the latter, she took thinking in a new direction which adds to Max Weber’s analysis,84
and, to some extent, forms an interesting complement. Weber distinguished three kinds of
legitimate authority: legal-rational authority, traditional authority, and charismatic authority.
Without considering this Weberian distinction (she probably did not know Weber’s writings), Mary
Parker Follett went on to conceive real authority as coming from function, an authority that has also
been developed by experience. The ‘legal-rational’ authority, which implies respect for a set of
impersonal rules legally imposed, has to be conferred on the basis of developed authority.
Finally, we suggest that our exploration here points up the value of further research. This would
include a deeper study of her writings, comparative studies of other authors, critical analysis of her
philosophical and ethical assumptions, and the implications of her ideas for current management.
For the sake of ‘what perhaps may be’, we hope managers and their teachers will perceive what needs
to be done.
Domènec Melé
Domènec Melé is Professor and Director of the Department of Business Ethics at IESE Business
School, University of Navarra, Spain. He has a doctorate in Industrial Engineering (University
Polytechnic of Catalonia, Spain) and another in Theology (University of Navarra). He has
published three books on Managerial Ethics as well as numerous articles and contributions to
books. In addition, he has edited seven books on business ethics issues including topics such as the
market economy, work and unemployment, business and family life, business policy, finance,
marketing and advertising and family business. He is director of the biennial International
Symposia on Ethics, Business and Society at IESE and co-Director of IESE´s Research Priority Area
‘Anthropological and Ethical Foundations of Management and Organizations’.
82 K Mattson ‘Reading Follett. An Introduction to The New State’ in: M P Follett The New State p xi
1998 loc cit
83 P F Drucker ‘Introduction’ in P Graham (ed) Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management. A
Celebration of Writings from 1920s p 7 Boston, Harvard Business School Press 1995
84 Max Weber The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (Talcott Parsons edition) Oxford and
New York, Oxford University Press 1957. Published originally in German as Part I of Wirtschaft und
Gesellschaft. According to Weber, legal-rational authority rests on the belief in the legality of enacted
rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands (In business firms,
the legal rights of stockholders as owners of the firm). Traditional authority rests on the belief in the
sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of those exercising authority under them (probably
not applicable to business firms, except for the fact that often almost divine rights in decision-making
are attributed to ‘managers’ - implicitly in most business schools). Finally, charismatic authority rests on
devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the
normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him.
Power, Freedom and Authority in Management
46 Philosophy of Management Volume 3 Number 2 2003
Josep M. Rosanas
Josep M Rosanas is Professor of Accounting and Control, IESE Business School, University of
Navarra, Spain. He has a PhD in Accounting and Information Systems (Northwestern University,
1977), is a Doctor in Industrial Engineering (Polytechnic University of Catalonia, 1981), gained an
MBA in 1971 (IESE, University of Navarra) and a degree in Nuclear Engineering (Polytechnic
University of Catalonia, 1969). He is the author of several books and articles relating to
management control and has been a consultant to many organisations.
Domènec Melé and Josep M Rosanas
