Understanding leadershipDecember 11, 2015

Understanding leadership – Part 13: Do you lead bureaucratically?

People as task carriers

In the 1920s the bureaucratic-administrative leadership approach spread worldwide from Germany, organising the rapidly growing numbers of white-collar and civil service staff in companies and public administration. Founders include Max Weber (1864–1920) and Henri Fayol (1841–1925).

Taylorism for white-collar staff

As companies were structured on Taylor's scientific management, hordes of white-collar staff arose around production. They were to be organised like production workers—"Taylorism for white-collar staff".

Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy

Bureaucracy is an organisation embodying maximum efficiency and legal authority. Weber's approach (Weber 1921) features high vertical division of labour—multi-level hierarchies. Like Taylor's worker, the clerk should not think about overall work context but act only within assigned hierarchy levels: take orders from above, execute exactly, give orders below equally precisely. Responsibility only within one's level; all else is none of their business. Everything is documented in writing—"file-based procedure" (Aktenmäßigkeit).

Features of bureaucratic work organisation

Division of labour leads to functional specialisation,
fixed authority hierarchy,
rule system defining rights and duties of post-holders,
promotion and career system,
standardised processes and file-based documentation,
impersonality of human relations,
belief in comprehensive planability of processes and relations,
belief in unlimited controllability of people.

Bureaucracy today?

Though no longer openly promoted, many fragments remain in leadership models—hence critical notes:

Not suited where problems need creative solutions; favours mechanistic thinking.
Motivation and job satisfaction ignored; assumes subordination to hierarchy always works.
Forced subordination breeds helplessness toward the apparatus—"work to rule" and "inner resignation".
Risk of excess: precision becomes pedantry, stability rigidity, documentation paper war.
Assumes constant environment—ignores situational dependence and adaptability.
Assumes constant company goals—neglects goal-setting with all stakeholders.

Bureaucracy is often assumed still to be the public administration model. Public administration has modernised greatly, though law-bound status still requires file-based procedure. Challenges of leadership in public administration will be discussed in the next post.

Questions about this topic? Reach out to us - the intro call is free and without obligation.

Schedule call

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first!