When you walk into a school you can immediately
sense the way that it is organized as you observe the mannerisms of the student
population and the staff. In my opinion,
the culture and organization of a school is a reflection of the administrative
team that leads it. As administrators, understanding the
organization of a school is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle; there are so
many pieces that you must consider operating a school efficiently. According to
Owens and Valesky (2007), “we know that we can deliberately choose between two
competing strategies of leading and organizing; a traditional top-down
hierarchy or a more collegial participative approach.” In this chapter, the analysis is interesting
as it revolves around an evolution of three organizational theories, scientific
management (Taylor), bureaucratic organizational theory (Weber), and classical
organizational theory (Fayol).
Components of each of these theories are useful to the functionality of
schools across Canada. Therefore, the
purpose of this examination is to look at the viability of these theories
within the walls of today’s schools.
Scientific management had a tremendous influence on
management practice in the early twentieth century. Although it does not
represent a complete theory of management, it has contributed to the study of
management and organizations in many areas, including human resource management
and industrial engineering. Many of the tenets of scientific management are
still valid today. Frederick Taylor developed the scientific
management theory which espoused careful specification and measurement of all
organizational tasks. An example of this within a school environment today would be
provincial achievement and diploma exams; exams that are meant to give the
province of Alberta the quantitative data that shows student understanding of
curriculum. Unfortunately, the
organization of some schools focus on these examinations as a bench mark for
scholastic achievement and further to this would equate this achievement to
good teaching practice. However, the question that can be posed is whether or
not this scientific approach to organization is a good approach to school
organization. From my perspective as an
administrator who has taught within a small school environment, organizing a
school to focus on student achievement alone does not give rise to the ideal
educational environment. As such, organizing a school with the best
academic teachers more often than not takes away from the overall identity of
the school.
As organizational theories evolved over time bureaucratic administration
became the watchword in the 1940’s. This
theory means fundamentally the exercise of control on the basis of knowledge
(Weber, 1947). For the sociologist,
power is principally exemplified within organizations by the process of
control. Max Weber distinguished between authority and power by defining the
latter as any relationship within which one person could impose his will,
regardless of any resistance from the other, whereas authority existed when
there was a belief in the legitimacy of that power. Weber classified
organizations according to the nature of that legitimacy: Charismatic
authority, based on the sacred or outstanding characteristic of the
individual; Traditional
authority: essentially a respect for
custom; Rational legal authority, which was based on a code or set of rules (Weber, 1947). Characteristics of Weber’s theories still
pervade schools today in the form student leadership teams and the hierarchical
organization of all schools.
Administrators can lead their staff through using charismatic authority,
traditional authority and rational legal authority. For instance, a principal may use policy to
help formulate the best way of organizing a school, thereby using rational
legal authority which their staff members must follow. As an administrator, this type of
organization produces the most efficient and organized school. However, others may find this type of
rigidity stifles creativity and leads to a movement away from authoritatively
driven leadership.
In contrast to scientific management, which deals largely with jobs and
work at the individual level of analysis, administrative management provides a
more general theory of management. Henri Fayol is the major contributor to this
school of management thought. Fayol was
a management practitioner who brought his experience to bear on the subject of
management functions and principles. He argued that management was a universal
process consisting of functions, which he termed planning, organizing,
commanding, coordinating, and controlling (Fayol, 1949). The processes that Fayol outlines in his book
are integral in the operation of schools today.
Fayol believed that all managers performed these functions and that the
functions distinguished management as a separate discipline of study apart from
accounting, finance, and production. Fayol also presented fourteen principles
of management, which included maxims related to the division of work, authority
and responsibility, unity of command and direction, centralization, subordinate
initiative, and team spirit. Although
administrative management has been criticized as being rigid and inflexible and
the validity of the functional approach to management has been questioned, this
school of thought still influences management theory and practice. The
functional approach to management is still the dominant way of organizing
management knowledge, and many of Fayol's principles of management, when
applied with the flexibility that he advocated, are still considered relevant
especially within the schools of today.
Organization
and leadership go hand in hand and this brief analysis has highlighted some of
the evolutionary roads that management has taken. Schools across the world use characteristics
of each of the theories that have been analyzed so far. In his book, General and Industrial
Management, Henri Fayol listed his 14 managerial principles and as an
administrator, the organization of a school goes beyond the traditional top
down hierarchy or the collegial approach.
It is a meshing of the two extremes to find policies that work for the
organization and betterment of the school itself. The three individual theories
that have been mentioned in this analysis are just the tip of the iceberg when
it comes to organizational theories but they do provide a baseline from which
today’s managers and administrators use.
References Cited:
Fayol, H. (1949) General and industrial management, translated from the French edition (Dunod) by Constance Storrs, Pitman.
Owens, Robert G and Valesky, Thomas C. (2007). Organizational Behavior in Education: Adaptive Leadership and School Reform, 9th Edition. Publisher: Pearson Education Inc.
Weber, Max (1947) The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Translated by A. M. Henderson & Talcott Parsons,The Free Press.
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