Determining a teams scope of authority: a critical leadership skill
SERIES 20: Our blog series features articles written by leaders in planning, engineering, and construction, offering valuable insights and knowledge for readers.
Once it is clear what a team’s work is and who make up the team it becomes imperative to determine the team’s scope of authority. It is best for those setting up the team to do this explicitly otherwise the team will do this implicitly and might either exercise too little authority or go too far. Leaders therefore need to ensure the team understands how much authority the team has and what decisions are theirs and which aren’t.
Leaders who clearly specify the scope of a team’s authority and ensure team members understand the extent and limits of their authority help to ensure work teams are well designed, well led and self-correcting. When these aspects are implemented, such teams become indispensable and an organisational feature that builds team capability.
Given these substantial benefits the process of helping a team come to terms with the extent and limits of authority requires leaders to exercise competent leadership skills and emotional maturity.
To this end, this article looks at the four different types of authority a team might hold and how leaders can go about defining them effectively.
What not to do.
To simply say this is now your team and responsibility for production is yours is a recipe for disorder. In the early stages of team formation, underutilization of authority is common, as team members may lack the readiness or confidence to make decisions that were previously the responsibility of others. Conversely, overuse of authority often occurs when teams become more experienced and successful, particularly when they are physically or communicatively distant from the leader. In such cases, teams may begin to take matters into their own hands, leading to confusion or misalignment. Both underuse and overuse of authority can harm individuals and organizations alike.
What to do.
To determine the scope of a team’s authority the leader should consider who is best placed to handle the three key functions that must be fulfilled by any team that has work to achieve.
- Execute the work –applying physical and mental effort to produce results.
- Monitor and manage the work process – gathering and interpreting information about how the work process is progressing and taking corrective action as needed.
- Design and direct – design the team structure, arrange organisational support, structure tasks, deciding who will be responsible for tasks and setting team norms; specify team objectives and purpose that the smaller tasks will tap into.
How to do it.
Leaders should decide the extent to which these functions are assigned to teams themselves and how many are handled by managers.
The authority matrix as outlined by the American Psychological Association is shown below. On the horizontal margin we see four levels of increasing self-management depending on who has the authority - authority is depicted on the vertical margin.
- For example, manager led teams have responsibility solely for executing the tasks. Whereas it is managers who set direction, design and monitor. In such teams these processes are kept as separate as possible.
- In self-managing teams members have responsibility for executing and monitoring their own performance. This is common in professional workplaces e.g. service providers handling client requests.
- Self-designing teams can modify the team design; leaders set the direction, but the team is responsible for all else. Committees and task forces are examples of these.
- Self-governing teams hold full responsibility for all aspects, including direction-setting, design, monitoring, and execution. Examples include legislative bodies, boards of directors, and professional partnerships.
| Setting overall direction | Management responsibility | Management responsibility | Management responsibility | Team responsibility |
| Designing the team and its organisational context | Management responsibility | Management responsibility | Team responsibility | Team responsibility |
| Monitoring and managing work processes and progress | Management responsibility | Team responsibility | Team responsibility | Team responsibility |
| Executing the team task | Team responsibility | Team responsibility | Team responsibility | Team responsibility |
Manager led teams | Self-managing teams | Self-designing teams | Self-governing teams |
Conclusion.
Leaders knowing what type of team is being created and team members understanding the scope of the authority they have is crucial to a team’s smooth functioning. Manager led teams invariably waste human resources by not taking advantage of workers capability to monitor their work (cf Blauner 1964). Within this paradigm managers specify all aspects of the work.
Most times self-governing teams would not be considered when setting a team up due to the broad scope of authority they have and are therefore typically only appropriate in specific contexts. These types of teams are rare and have special dynamics.
Self-managing and self-designing teams are frequently encountered in many sectors of society. When well designed they can be self-correcting; an organisational feature that builds team capability rather than overlook it. On the other hand, when such teams falter they can produce great damage. Therefore, it is essential for leaders to clearly specify teams’ authority structures and make sure teams understand the extent and limits of their responsibilities.
By clearly defining authority, leaders can help teams thrive and maximise their impact on the organisation.
Alex Mckee
Alex McKee, PhD, is a Mathematician, Statistician and Psychometrician who has built and coached various statistical work teams. He is the founder and Managing Director of a Statistical Consultancy and a results and communication coach.