Authority is becoming more and more complicated today: in an economic and social context that is moving towards decentralization, autonomy is becoming one of the central values. However, we still need leaders. Claude de SCORRAILLE, Olivier BROSSEAU and Grégoire VITRY maintain in their book, When work hurts, that the key to a good exercise of authority is in benevolence.
It is said that one day someone asked Lao Tzu: "How to improve beings without governing them?" . He replied, " Be careful not to disturb their minds, for the mind of man is so made that he feels oppressed by all pressure and elated by all incitement. Oppressed he feels imprisoned; elated he can commit havoc. Flexibility and kindness outweigh harshness and violence that freezes like ice or burns like fire.”
The etymology of the term “authority” comes from the Latin augere which means: to increase, to reveal to the other that he is capable of more than he is, of being more and better in a different way.
To be authoritative is to participate in increasing in others their self-confidence in their own growth. Thus, by submitting to someone, to a rule, to an instruction, if one voluntarily adopts this position of inferiority, one does so all the more willingly as one has confidence in the fact that this submission is a sesame. to grow.
True authority is that which presents the obligation, that of communicating and acting with a view to participating in the development of the one on whom one wishes to have an influence.
Authority is expressed in the relationship, it benefits its two protagonists, if one grows, the other also grows. The relationship between these two people is authoritative or not, according to a non-zero sum game logic, where the two will win or lose together. If the relationship of trust cannot be established in this way, a balance of power will emerge giving way to a zero-sum game, where one will win and the other will lose. With the risk in the long run of losing everyone.
Demonstrating authority is a way of relating that produces authority through a circular process where one does:
- act of benevolence by giving autonomy and initiative to his collaborator to achieve an objective or solve a problem.
- act of control by ensuring the follow-up of the objective to be achieved, by identifying what is causing difficulty.
- act of support for the development of the collaborator by indicating to him how to push back his limits by corrective actions and without replacing his collaborator in their achievements.
And again, an act of benevolence will be implemented in the form of a new objective, once again giving room for initiative and accountability.
