The Dilemma of Authority in Supervisory Behavior

ERGIOVANNI and Starratt pose a fundamental question that is basic to the ends, means, and outcomes of educa tion: Should schools use people to accom plish organizational ends or should people use schools to accomplish human ends? They ask the reader to recall, "the countless times he found no reason or no record of origin for a particular policy, act, or way of behaving in the schools of his experience." ' The frustration of many encounters with what appeared to be bureaucratic "mindlessness" motivated me to study the bureaucraticprofessional interface of authority in supervisory behavior and to locate meaning for my own feelings about authority in gen eral.