Timeless Management Principles:
​Authority and Power

Watson Sr. and Drucker on Authority and Power

Date Published: August 3, 2021
Date Modified: January 1, 2024

Authority Requires Legitimate Power

In a functioning society, power is exercised as authority, and authority is the rule of right over might. But only a legitimate power can have authority and can expect and command that social self-discipline which alone makes organized institutional life possible.

Peter F. Drucker
The Future of Industrial Man

Responsible Management Exercises Power Carefully

"When you give men authority it affects them differently. Some men think, ‘I have been given authority to tell these other men what to do.’ Consequently, they are not able to tell anybody what to do that will be of any value.

"When a man is given a promotion, his responsibility has been extended and the first thing for him to do is to worry a little  over it instead of taking a great deal of pride in his new power. His first duty is to sit down and to think seriously about his responsibility and how he can aid his coworkers”

Thomas. J. Watson Sr.
We Are All Assistants​

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How are we going to attain corporate social self-discipline if we have no corporate rule of right over might?

​Peter E. Greulich Insight
January, 2013​

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