Authority exists only where subordinates accept it, so an instruction outside the zone of acceptance is not authority but noise.
Barnard, a Bell System executive, argued from experience in 1938 that authority is conferred upward. It explains why organisations avoid issuing orders they suspect will be ignored.
In practice
- A director issues an instruction that everyone quietly does not follow, and discovers she has less authority than the shift supervisor who is obeyed.
- A new policy on expense claims is ignored for a year because nobody believes it will be enforced, and it never is.