Our society runs on authority.  We are schooled in it from the moment we are born.  Cultures are defined by it.  Wars are waged over it.  Order is maintained by it.  Even the animal kingdom has some level of authority in play—when was the last time you saw a monkey take a swipe at the ear of a lion?  Given the degree to which it permeates each and every aspect of our lives, it’s easy to just roll with it, to accept it without the slightest thought.  But what if you could harness it?  What if you could recognize how your response to authority virtually defines who you are, and becomes the variable that influences the outcome of your efforts and dreams? 

Sociologists tell us that there are three primary types of authority, all of them running rampant in our lives.  We take all three for granted, and in a big way.  Once you understand them you won’t suddenly be inclined to picket city hall.  No, understanding authority is like an athlete understanding their game—you play by the rules, you have a role to fulfill and obligations to meet… but equally, in the context of understanding the game, you have an opportunity to make a move, to assert your position and persuade others to follow your lead.

Traditional Authority – It’s Not Just for Kings and Queens Anymore

Since the beginning of civilization, society has run on traditional authority.  There is sense of entitlement, of one’s inherent and inherited right to power, that comes with traditional authority.  Traditional authority quite literally owes its existence to little more than tradition.  And though our culture is evolving and blurring the lines between traditional and other types of authority, it remains as a factor in modern society.  The best examples are associated with traditions that create a monarchy—from kings and queens to Tudors to land barons to ruling families within class systems, but there are others, some as close as your living room.

In many homes, the man assumes the role of head of the household, with certain understood and assumed rights and powers.  The mother, because of tradition, has her own rights and powers, her own authority, and woe to the man who challenges it.  This domestic authority model is traditional in every respect, owing its origins and its empowerment to nothing more than, well, tradition.  When the tradition stops—which is a choice some families make—and the power is nullified by the parties who have been subjected to it, any authority associated with the position vanishes.  Literally, authority can be unauthorized by those who have authorized it.  Divorce is often the result when this happens.

This very insight, subtle as it is, and when taken to a global, geopolitical scale, is the very essence of war.  Authority can be vested, but it is always licensed by those over whom it is wielded.  When power is forced upon a constituency without that license, it becomes something other than authority—it becomes coercion. 

Rational-Legal Authority – The Empowerment of a Badge and a Title

Traditional authority is not inherently rational or even legitimate.  Traditions are hard to break, and their origins dating back to times with different social norms and values.  But when authority is vested for rational, legitimate reasons, it becomes something different entirely.  Rational-Legal authority, more than traditional authority, is the stuff of society and politics.  It is what establishes and keeps order and generally provides structure, which those same sociologists assure us resides at the top of the list of things human beings crave and require.

Elected officials are prime examples of rational-legal authority.  Police and military power is nothing other than rational-legal authority in a uniform—it has been authorized not by tradition, but rather by legitimate need and the licensed consent of the constituency that ascribes to the power vested in those positions.  When a policeman switches on his lights, we pull over.  Why?  Because we honor the authority those lights represent (and, the fine doubles if we don’t)—in addition to the programmed response the lights elicit.

Another example of rational-legal authority is the highly specialized knowledge, skill and expertise possessed by all types of experts, specialists and so-called “gurus”.  An MBA after your name signals to the public at large that you know a thing or two about Quantitative Analysis and Probability Theory, while a Psy. D. advertises a different skill set altogether. Even non-official labels like New York Times bestselling author or definitions created by media outlets, like “Security Expert to the Stars”, create a perception of authority that separates the “gurus” from mere mortals, entitling the former to charge the latter a lot more money for their services; all because of real or perceived rational-legal authority.  

Rational-Legal authority differs from the other two types of authority because we are bound by consent and consequences to submit to it. As long as the rationale is logical and legitimate, and the consequences of disobeying are in line with the objectives it serves, then such authority will continue and prevail. Those who seek influence and the vesting of this type of authority need to understand this concept—when the nature and balance of power and influence exceed the boundaries of legitimacy, authority is compromised and weakened. In fact, it is doomed. Abusive managers should take heed of this.

Charismatic Authority – A Star Is Born

“Charisma,” by definition, is a quality that draws the attention and admiration of others.  We tend to vest authority in a person who is charismatic, we want to be like them and follow them, or at least be near them.  Religious leaders and icons rise to their position through charismatic authority, even if the position exists (think Pope) because of tradition.  Same for politicians—it’s tough to get elected without charisma (but it does happen—think Britain’s Gordon Brown or Germany’s Angela Merkel) and once elected, your charismatic authority becomes rational-legal authority by virtue of the office you now occupy. The distinction here is critical—charismatic authority comes from the person, rational-legal authority comes from the position within a structure.  Look no further than the great state of California in the US for an excellent, muscle-bound example.  Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t gain the authority to veto bills and sign petitions into law because he can bench press a Range Rover and looks good on the silver screen.  Nor was he elected to the office of Governor for any other reason than that he can do precisely that. His authority, both charismatic and rational-legal, is markedly separate and different among those two types, with vastly different powers and limits for each. 

The Very Human Need to Follow Authority

All three types of authority have one thing in common—the power that defines the scope and nature of it is given by those subjected to it.  Even kings born to power are in essence powerless, they are completely without authority, unless their people submit to his position.  It may be challenging to escape that power, especially if the traditions are deep, but history has proven that without the licensing of power by the people, it is destined for failure.

All of this is the product of human psychology.  In a well-documented experiment at Yale University in 1960, our need to follow authority was illuminated in a dark and disturbing way.  The same way, in fact, that entire populations follow the authority of powerful and charismatic figures like Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro.  Such leaders, those who understand this very basic human need and somehow tap into it, are capable of assuming great power and authority, at least until the legitimacy of it—always a necessity for authority to endure—remains unchallenged.

In the Yale experiment, one unsuspecting test subject and two people posing as volunteers were involved.  One of the fake-volunteers was a “student,” who was wired with electric probes which would impart a shock if he got an answer wrong.  The other fake volunteer was the person asking the questions.  The test subject was the person who actually administered the electric shocks when the student gave a wrong answer, as ordered by the questioner, who without instruction assumed the role of authority in this scenario.  The more wrong answers the student gave, the stronger the electric shocks became, each one a response to the questioner’s cue to administer the shock.  The process continued until the shocks—which were faked by the two shills—became severe to the point of apparent torture, complete with writhing and screaming. 

Here’s the scary part.  The test subject delivering the shocks could have declined to do so.  They could have said no and headed for the parking lot.  But the vast majority didn’t.  They continued to administer the shocks long past a point that constituted torture.  Further tests confirmed this had nothing at all to do with latent sadism or other psychosis.  Rather, it had everything to do with the human psychology of a perceived duty to follow authority.  In this case, even when there were no consequences of not doing so.

The Icons of Authority

Because rational-legal authority and charismatic authority—the only two forms we can realistically apply in our own lives to create consequences, and the two that impact our lives as part of a constituency—are vested, it follows that people will make efforts to acquire it.  Once people perceive authority in others, they quickly vest authority in that person through their programmed response. 

Keep this information in your back pocket, as it can shape the way you influence others from this point forward: The three primary social clues that are perceived as authoritative are titles, clothing—like that pin-striped Savile Row suit you’ve been eyeing—and perceivable wealth. 

As mentioned earlier, if you have an “M.D.” or “Ph.D.” after your name, you most certainly walk through the world within an aura of authority surrounding you. Likewise, identify yourself as the president of your company, and authority follows. Oscar winners, Nobel Prize laureates and elite athletes elicit the perception of authority within their realm of expertise.  Even the implied title of one’s occupation—lawyer, personal trainer, journalist, standup comedian—imparts some authority within a defined niche.  Human nature, not the title, imparts that authority.  Which is why many people who run a one-person company have the title of “Chief Executive Officer” on their business card—it empowers them with authority in a way that “One Man Shop” just can’t. 

Police officers wear a uniform for a reason—it imparts the essence of authority.  When a uniformed officer appears at your front door, you probably have a different context for your response than if you believe the caller is selling vacuum cleaners.  But you don’t have to be on the NYPD’s payroll to elicit the perception of authority with your threads. A well-known social experiment illustrates the power of the common business suit, as a young man in his thirties, dressed in a pin-striped suit, shirt and tie, deliberately broke the law as he crossed the street against the traffic light and—almost four times as many people followed suit (no pun intended), as opposed to when the man just wore a regular shirt and trousers during the same experiment.  When Mark Twain said, “clothes make the man,” what he really meant was that clothes position a man, or a woman, as a person of authority by virtue of the perception the clothes elicit.

The illusion of perceivable wealth—driving an expensive car, wearing tailor-made clothing or pricey jewelry, even a trendy haircut—have a powerful effect: it imparts a perception of authority, which causes people to react in a way that actually vests authority.  It’s hard not to listen to someone who simply reeks of success, whereas we walk right past the poor fellow on the street holding out his hand, and reeking of something else entirely. The former has authority; the latter simply needs a sandwich and a shower.

Need more proof? Consider another example from the literature of the social sciences: A study conducted in San Francisco tells of motorists waiting much longer before honking their horns behind drivers of luxury vehicles when the light was green. The study goes on to report that a full 50 percent of the time, those stuck behind a luxury car at a green light waited so patiently, as to never even sound their horn at all.

You might imagine what happened when the traffic-blocking vehicle was an old economy model as opposed to the latest sports car; a concert of horns unleashed upon the less fortunate driver of the low-rent vehicle, with a couple of impatient motorists even ramming the car’s bumper in protest.     

Playing the Authority Game in an Authority World

So what is the start-up entrepreneur and business professional to do with this sudden enlightenment about the nature and power of authority in our lives?  For starters, this understanding might enable you to recognize an effort to manipulate you through the illusion of authority—such as the actor dressed in a physician’s lab-coat who is really just trying to sell you the latest revolutionary diet supplement, or the banker whose impressive financial vocabulary and title after his name may be all decorum and no substance; at least none of benefit to you. It may also enable you to recognize when a situation has crossed the line from authority to coercion, as defined by the absence of legitimacy and perhaps the waving of a very big stick.  Your understanding may empower you to make a better choice in these situations, or avoid them altogether.  At the very least, you’ll be aware you are yielding to authority of which you may or may not approve.

Or, you can assume the tools of perceived authority, from clothing and titles, suggesting specialized knowledge and expertise, to the status symbols of wealth, and apply them to your ability to create desirable consequences in your life.  Rather than aspiring to leadership, this understanding will empower you to acquire authority through action that earns the licensing of authority from your constituents.  Rather than posing, you might now create real authority by understanding where it comes from and what it means.

Authority permeates every part of our lives, and its nature is evolving, as the lines between the three types are blurring.  But if you keep your eyes open to the truth behind the perception of authority, what has always been invisible might just become crystal clear.

© Harrison Monarth 2009