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Unit 19: Planning and Organizing Supervisory Activity

individual personalities and no attempt is made to utilise the intelligence and talent of the Notes
juniors. There is great wastage of both talent and energy. Activities are duplicated ; and due to
lack of distribution of responsibility important activities and services quite often remain
neglected. The greatest disadvantage of such an organization are two. Firstly, even a temporary
withdrawal of the key person or head precipitates a crisis. “When the cat is away the mice will
play.” Secondly, lack of inter-personal communication within the group reduces the morale of
the workers.

The authoritarian organization is still quite popular and is used widely in our country as well
as in other countries of the world. Though, it is being gradually replaced by the leadership-
oriented or democratic pattern of supervisory organization, it is hoped that it will be used for
a long time to come. The leadership-oriented organization is based upon leadership instead of
authority and is formulated co-operatively by all the concerned persons. Theoretically, it is no
doubt superior to authoritarian organization of supervisory programmes. But, in practice it
requires for being effective a high level of socialization and acculturation of people who have
to operate it. Rorer has described two types of authoritarian organizations, internal, and external.
The external organization deals with the machinery and personnel of a system. The internal
organization deals with the functioning of the machinery.
In case of the external organization the authority is centralized in the legally appointed person at
the head. For example, the district inspector of schools in Uttar Pradesh is responsible for the
general instructional policy of the department of education and the principal of a school is the
executive-in-chief with supreme responsibility in his school. He is directly responsible to the
district inspector of schools. The authority and responsibility may be delegated by the district
inspector to inferior officers. In this case, the performance of duties at a particular level are
checked by the next higher authority. The principal or a departmental head is both an
administrative and a supervisory officer.
In case of internal organization facility for co-operation and co-ordination is provided and there
is a common policy, theory of education, technology, philosophy and aims for all. The next
higher officer co-ordinates the work of officers and other persons. At the highest level there is
the director of education who co-ordinates the functioning of the deputy directors. The deputy
director co-ordinates the functioning of all the district inspectors of his region. Cases of conflict
or disagreement between any officers or groups are settled by the next higher administrative
officer and ultimately by the director of education. One preferable feature of this kind of
organisation is that there is flexibility of operation in this. When the need arises adjustment of
duties, transfer of work, assignment of additional duty is possible. These features counteract, in
some measure, the inherently un-democratic nature of authoritarian organization.
Authoritarian organizations are found, in the countries of the world, in different forms. One of
these was named by Barr long ago. It is extrinsic-dualistic organization. In this case supervision
was considered “extrinsic” to an educational organization. This consideration was responsible
for dualistic conception of administration and supervision. As held by Barr extrinsic-dualistic
organization has no central authority, no definition of lines, no mechanisms for co-operation,
nor any modern method for co-operative formulation of procedures. The line and staff organization
is another form which is found in its pure form in the army. In this kind of organization, line
officers are those who are in authority and who issue orders. Authority descends along regularly
defined” lines”from top officer to the lowest one. No officer at any point can be superseded
when approaching the officer higher to him. Through “proper channel” procedures are strictly
followed. Staff-officers are specialized experts belonging to professional and technical services.
They have no authority and issue no orders though they may have equivalent ranks. Their
duties are to supply information, give advice or technical assistance to the line-officers. This
kind of organization due to the rigidity of its functioning is considered suitable for army,
publishing companies, manufacturing concerns, etc., but not for the schools and other educational

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