James D. Mooney - Authority Quotes

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Leadership is the form that authority assumes when it enters into process. As such it constitutes the determining principle of the entire scalar process, existing not only at the source, but projecting itself through its own action throughout the entire chain, until, through functional definition, it effectuates the formal coordination of the entire structure.

James D. Mooney
The informative phase refers to those things which authority should know in framing its decisions; the advisory, to the actual counsel based on such information; the supervisory, to both preceding phases as applied to all the details of execution. The point is that the line represents the authority of man; the staff, the authority of ideas. The staff is purely an auxiliary service. Its function is to be informative and advisory with respect to both plans and their execution. This is implicit in the word "staff" which is something to support or lean upon but without authority to decide or initiate.

James D. Mooney
By the term functionalism, considered as a principle of organization, we mean the differentiation or distinction between kind of duties. Thus it is clearly distinguished from the scalar principle, in which there is also differentiation, but of quite another kind. The scalar differentiation refers simply to degrees or gradations of authority.

James D. Mooney
In organization it means the graduation of duties, not according to differentiated functions, for this involves another and distinct principle of organization, but simply according to degrees of authority and corresponding responsibility.

James D. Mooney
The supreme coordinating authority must rest somewhere and in some form in every organization, else there could be no such thing as organized.

James D. Mooney
It is sufficient here to observe that the supreme coordinating authority must be anterior to leadership in logical order, for it is this coordinating force which makes the organization. Leadership, on the other hand, always presupposes the organization. There can be no leader without something to lead.

James D. Mooney
Delegation means the conferring of a specified authority by a higher authority. In its essence it involves a dual responsibility. The one to vhom responsibility is delegated becomes responsible to the superior for doing the job. but the superior remains responsible for getting the Job done. This principle of delegation is the center of all processes in formal organization. Delegation is inherent in the very nature of the relation between superior and subordinate. The moment the objective calls for the organized effort of more than one person, there is always leadership with its delegation of duties.

James D. Mooney
It is essentially to the very idea and concept of organization that we there must be a process, formal in character, through which the supreme co-ordinating authority operates throughout the whole structure of the organized body. This process is not an abstraction; it is a tangible reality observable in every organization. It appears in a form so distinct and characteristic that it practically names itself, — hence the term Scalar Process.

James D. Mooney
As coordination is the all-inclusive principle of organization, it must have its own principle and foundation in Authority, or the supreme coordinating power. Always, in every form of organization, this supreme coordinating authority must rest somewhere, else there would be no directive for any truly coordinated effort. The term authority as here used need imply nothing of autocracy.

James D. Mooney
The staff function in organization means the service of advice or counsel, as distinguished from the function of authority or command. This service has three phases, which appear in a clearly integrated relationship. These phases are the informative, the advisory, and the supervisory.

James D. Mooney
Coordination, therefore, is the orderly arrangement of group efforts, to provide unity of action in the pursuit of a common purpose. As coordination is the all inclusive principle of organization it must have its own principle and foundation in authority, or the supreme coordination power. Always, in every form of organization, this supreme authority must rest somewhere, else there would be no directive for any coordinated effort.

James D. Mooney