Understanding and Identifying Authority

This exercise highlights the various types of authority in organizations.

Whether an individual has been hired for their first supervisory job after college, or whether an individual is promoted from employee to

supervisor, one of the major challenges they face is learning about authority, power, responsibility, and accountability. New supervisors need to

know that when their boss points to the supervisor's desk and says "the buck stop here," the boss is indicating that responsibility rests with the

new supervisor. The boss also can tell them "you are in charge of deciding how to achieve the department's goals." Authority to make decisions

about how to achieve assigned goals and responsibility for actually achieving those goals go hand in hand.

Read the descriptions of the various individuals and match them to the corresponding attribute.

Staff Authority

Functional Authority

$3$

Accountability

$4$

Responsibility