25 Feb 2023

126

What is Legal-Rational Authority?

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According to Max Weber, a political economist and sociologist who was from Germany, the three types of authority are traditional, charismatic, and legal-rational authorities. The community accepts traditional authority, as that has been the case traditionally. This means that its legitimacy exists only because the people have approved it for a long time. People feel obligated to perpetuate power as they think they are invested in the past (Mershon, 2019) . The ruler in this kind of has no real force to maintain the position or carry out their will, although this depends primarily on the group’s respect. Charismatic authority is a context where followers accept the power of a leader due to the leader's traits or qualities. This means that the appeal of the leader can be extraordinary, pushing the followers into persevering hardships and make extraordinary sacrifices. This is a type of power that is made legitimate by written rules, laws, and regulations. Authority is vested in a given rationale, ideology, system, and not necessarily to the person who is implementing the power of the doctrine (Glassman, 2019) . This power is found in countries that follow the constitution, or at a workplace where specific standards are set. 

According to French and Raven, there are five types of powders encountered in our daily lives. These are: 

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Reward- describes a situation where one has the power to deny or offer other people rewards due to doing what is expected of them. 

Legitimate-power is vested on a person through the voting, selection, and maybe underpinned by social customs. 

Expert-the power is based on what one's talent is, experience, or special skills. 

Referent-power is based on the affiliations we make and the groups we belong to. 

Coercive-where one exercising power threatens others to get compliance.  

In conflict resolution, competing for behavior is one of the most unpleasant ways as it entails a situation where every party in the conflict strives to ensure dominance. (Simons, 2016) It is characterized by rush decision making, in a case where the outcome is very critical, and they cannot compromise and when proving to be right matters more than preserving the existing relationship with the other person or party. 

Accommodating Behavior 

This type of behavior is characterized by high cooperativeness and low assertiveness. An accommodating person forgoes their concern to satisfy the fears of others in the group. These individuals believe in goodwill, harmony, and reciprocity that is associated with this kind of behavior. 

Avoiding Behavior 

These are the actions that someone takes as a way of escaping difficult situations, feelings, and thoughts. Many people with panic disorder tend to take avoiding the behavior to overcome fearful thoughts, over-anxiety, dreadful feelings, and other anxiety-related problems. They might hurt their lives, including their careers, personal interests, and relationships. 

Collaborative Behavior 

Collaboration as human behavior is experienced when two or more people or groups come together to intersect their goals. This behavior is essential in that it helps share knowledge, building consensus, and learning (Vlaeyen, 2016) . The expression can be nurtured through trust-building, promoting diversity, sharpening one's skills, and the behavior also creates psychological safety. 

Compromising Behavior 

In a conflicting behavior, compromising or negotiation comes in handy. This one of the best forms of solving conflict as it entails a situation where there will be favorable results from both parties, although it does not signify a win/win situation. Both parties will give something in favor of the agreed solution. The solution takes less time to come forth, although there might be less commitment too. Participative decision making enables the group or the organization to increase productivity since people feel they are strongly associated with the group. They assume responsibility and take charge. It also allows people to have job satisfaction. Participative decision making also acts as a motivation tool in the group or organization. Less motivation means people will be less productive (Wong, 2018) . Decentralized decisions mean every on in the group is essential. Since participative decision making receives feedback and inputs from every person in the group, there is improved quality. This means that even the slightest detail is taken care of. No loophole or flaw can go undetected. Finally, participative decision making reduces costs since there is a lesser need for supervision, and the group lays more efforts in sharpening and widening skills and self-management, meaning the costs are controlled automatically. 

Cons of Participative Decision Making (PDM ) 

There is a slowdown in decision making as many people have to be involved before any verdict is met during the process. There are input and feedback from every side, which takes time to get verified, slowing down the process (Overbey, 2017) . There is also a security concern as many people tend to believe that every person bears. The information might transform into a critical one in the future, creating apprehension of the information leaking out. 

Effectiveness of PDM 

The process is useful in a situation where there is a need for a comprehensive understanding of a situation or a case. Having several people like prosecutors and judges come together to analyses a claim would mean that in the end, the decision made would be useful and representative of every people's idea. 

Counter-effectiveness of PDM 

When exercising judgment, it is solely a situation where one needs to make choices about a given situation alone and take alternative actions. Having many people give out their views on a case means that they would undermine the best decision possible, therefore being unfair with their dealing. Also called pure or fundamental research, primary research entails scientific analysis intending to improve theories to enhance understanding or the prediction of the natural or any other phenomena. In criminal justice, some ways and applications are being aimed at strengthening basic research in forensic science where intensive research on life, physical, and cognitive sciences are considered. This knowledge is essential as it helps increase the understanding and the projected uses of criminal justice systems (Maxfield, 2015) . Primary research is necessary for criminal justice as it will expand the knowledge and explore further in the field, leading to the innovation of new and improved methods of dealing with situations. It will help seek answers for many fundamental asked questions in the area, creating a more elaborate justice system. 

Applied Research 

Contrary to basic research, applied research is a fundamental field that seeks to solve practically a specific problem in a group or an individual. This research is used in vast areas of science like education, medicine, and business to find solutions to harmful diseases, develop new and improve technology, and solve specific scientific problems. Applied research has been, for the longest time, the fundamental research tool in criminal justice and criminology (Senesse, 1997) . Applied research has been able to come up with ways that, when employed in these fields, there will be prevention, evaluation, and interventions that would help in dealing with criminal cases and other related cases. Applied research has evolved to bring evidence-based practices, transitional research, and implementation research in criminology and criminal justice (Potter, 2015) . It helps people quantify and apply the techniques learned in basic research into more application forms. Organizational development or OD are the measures taken to ensure organizational success through aligning structural, strategic, and cultural realities of work as a way of responding to the needs of the ever-evolving world of business, justice, or technology, among other fields. These might be planned or systematic approaches that are aimed at improving the effectiveness of a given government department, organization, or a given company. Plans that align individual strategies and processes. The measure includes planned, systematic attitudes and beliefs of the company through the creation of reinforcement of medium or long term programs (Namada, 2018) . The field is growing under human resource management and entails what an organization system is doing to elaborate change. Today, the area encompasses the alignment of complex and changing environments within the organization's context through factors like organizational learning, management of knowledge, and adapting the organization's norms and values. The field focuses on understanding and even managing the systemic changes in organizations as it is an ever-evolving field of science that helps signify the importance of how an organization operates and the changes that need to be implemented to improve the operations (Brunning, 2018) . The changes are aimed at ensuring there are a positive change and growth in people and in the organizations they work in. There are several OD activities undertaken in any organization guaranteeing success. These are training, team building, innovation, coaching, management change, career development, leadership development, talent management, and organizational assessment, among others. 

Police officers have the mandate to ensure that law and order are maintained as well as provide security to people in the community. The following are some of the traits and qualities they must possess to ensure their work runs smoothly (Scherman, 2019) . 

Compassionate and Empathetic 

Police officers spend their time dealing with the public and often in dreadful or unusual positions. They also spend time with a vulnerable population of people with addiction and mental disorders. They should, therefore, understand what the other person is feeling, share the feeling, and act appropriately. 

Team Players 

The work requires high cooperation with other people and law enforces, court officials, social workers, paramedics, among others. It does not mean that they should act on their own in a given situation as such a job requires a team-building spirit. 

Critical Thinkers 

They deal with impossible and varying situations in their line of duty. They, therefore, need to sort through a wide range of information to understand a situation, including irrelevant or misleading information. Having excellent critical thinking helps them maneuver through such situations with ease. 

Integrity 

To do their work, they require to build public trust. This will make the general feel comfortable, confident, and safe when reporting crimes and issues to the police. Public confidence will only come if the police can be honest, even when not being monitored. 

Flexibility and Adaptability 

Police officers work in an ever-changing environment. They need to swift in understanding the shifting factors in their work and be able to act accordingly. 

References 

Brunning, H. (2018). A manual of organizational development: The psychology of change. Routledge. 

Glassman, R. M. (2019). The Rational-Scientific World-View after the Protestant Reformation. In The Future of Democracy , 47-48. 

Maxfield, M. G. (2015). Basics of research methods for criminal justice and criminology. Cengage Learning. 

Mershon, C. &. (2019). Traditional authority and bargaining for legitimacy in dual legitimacy systems. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 57 (2), 273-296. 

Namada, J. M. (2018). Organizational learning and competitive advantage. In Handbook of Research on Knowledge Management for Contemporary Business Environments , 86-104. 

Overbey, J. &. (2017). Moving from power to empowerment in decision-making. In Servant leadership and followership , 177-205. 

Potter, R. H. (2015). Crime and Criminal Justice: Applied Research from Routine Monitoring to Evidence-Based Practices. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition) , 127-131. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.10522-7 

Scherman, J. (2019, September 16). 6 Often Overlooked Qualities of a Great Police Officer . Retrieved October 23, 2019, from Rasmussen College: https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/justice-studies/blog/overlooked-qualities-of-police-officer/ 

Senesse, J. D. (1997). Applied Research Methods in Criminal Justice. National Criminal Justice Reference Services , 417. 

Simons, L. G. (2016). Mechanisms that link parenting practices to adolescents’ risky sexual behavior: A test of six competing theories. Journal of youth and adolescence, 45 (2), 255-270. 

Vlaeyen, J. W. (2016). The fear-avoidance model of pain. Pain, 157 (8), 1588-1589. 

Wong, Y. Y. (2018). Benefits of team participative decision making and its potential to affect individual creativity. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 48 (7), 369-376. 

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