Question

Hitesh started a garment manufacturing company recently. However, he soon began facing several problems like targets not met, conflicts among managers, high labour turnover, etc. He hired a management consultant to find out what was going wrong. The consultant conducted investigations and gave the following observations :
(i) In Production Department, workers were receiving instructions from both, the Production Manager and the Marketing Manager. As a result, there was a lot of confusion regarding tasks to be done.
Identify and explain the two principles of management given by Fayol which are not being followed in Hitesh’s company.

Hint:

Unity of Command = One Person, One Boss.
If a worker has two bosses, they can use the orders of one as an excuse to ignore the orders of the other.

Answer 1

Concept:

• Henri Fayol's principles of management are designed to bring order and efficiency to an organization.

• One of the most critical principles for preventing organizational chaos is the management of the authority-subordinate relationship.

• The lack of a clear chain of command often leads to conflicting priorities and employee frustration.
Step 1: Analyze the departmental instruction clash
In the case of Hitesh's garment company, the workers were caught between two different departmental heads.
Receiving orders from both the Production Manager and the Marketing Manager at the same time is a classic example of dual subordination.
This identifies a violation of the Principle of Unity of Command.

Step 2: Define the Principle of Unity of Command
According to Henri Fayol, an individual employee should receive orders from and be accountable to only one superior.
This principle ensures that there is no ambiguity regarding whose instructions should be followed first.
It prevents the overlapping of authority and ensures that the subordinate is not placed in a position where it is impossible to satisfy the demands of two different bosses.

Step 3: Explain the impact of the violation
The observation notes that there was "a lot of confusion regarding tasks to be done."
Fayol argued that when Unity of Command is violated, "authority is undermined, discipline is in jeopardy, order disturbed and stability threatened."
In this specific instance, the conflicts between the managers and the missed targets are direct results of the workers not having a single, clear source of direction.