ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an important distinction between three types of authority–temporary, situational authorization, enunciative authority and institutional authority. It shows how throughout our history authority has advanced from one definition to the next, ending up in the institutional authority of contemporary management. The chapter introduces anarchist ideas of horizontality and self-management; and explores how organizations can be structured to avoid authority and discusses some of the problems these organizations might run into. Leadership is a concept that starts from an assumption of authority, that there must be some people in organizations who give orders, make decisions and expect obedience. In a historical sense, considering the authority of religion, the will exercised by the individual initially gave way to the will of god. The basic assumption is that hierarchy and authority are always necessary in order to organize, even though they can sometimes be abused.
