Unity of Command

What Unity of Command is

Unity of Command (وحدة الأمر) is a management principle holding that an employee receives orders for a given piece of work from one supervisor. It is attributed to Henri Fayol, the French engineer and manager, and secondary sources place it among his fourteen principles. The same term is used in military writing, and it draws debate in structures where an employee answers to two sources. This is our wording of what we read and not a literal quotation from any source. The Arabic title is our choice of rendering for the English term, and other renderings exist, such as «وحدة القيادة».

Which sources did we check?

We verified the bibliographic data of the works below in Crossref, except for Fayol’s book, which we did not find recorded there. Crossref records that the works exist and gives their publication details. It does not cover their content. We dropped hyphens from the English titles, following our writing rule:

• Fayol. The book “Administration industrielle et générale”, 1916. A first English translation appeared in 1930 as “Industrial and General Administration”, translated by Coubrough. A later translation, “General and Industrial Management”, was published by Pitman in London in 1949, and secondary sources attribute it to Storrs. Those sources differ on whether a separate edition of the book appeared in 1916 or 1917. These details come from secondary web pages and not from Crossref or a library catalogue, so we treat them as unverified.
• Wren, Bedeian and Breeze. The article “The foundations of Henri Fayol’s administrative theory” in Management Decision, volume 40, issue 9, 2002, pages 906 to 918, identifier 10.1108/00251740210441108.
• Wren. The article “The Influence of Henri Fayol on Management Theory and Education in North America” in Entreprises et histoire, issue 34, 2003, pages 98 to 107, identifier 10.3917/eh.034.0098.
• Simon. The article “The Proverbs of Administration” in Public Administration Review, volume 6, issue 1, 1946, starting on page 53 according to Crossref, identifier 10.2307/973030.
• Galbraith. The article “Matrix organization designs How to combine functional and project forms” in Business Horizons, volume 14, issue 1, February 1971, pages 29 to 40. Crossref records an identifier for it, which we leave out because it contains hyphens.
• Mintzberg. The article “Structure in 5’s: A Synthesis of the Research on Organization Design” in Management Science, volume 26, issue 3, March 1980, pages 322 to 341, identifier 10.1287/mnsc.26.3.322.
• Knight. The article “Responsibility and authority in the matrix organization or is ambiguity a good thing?” in R&D Management, volume 7, issue 3, June 1977, pages 183 to 186. Its Crossref identifier is also left out because it contains hyphens.
• Ford and Randolph. The article “Cross Functional Structures: A Review and Integration of Matrix Organization and Project Management” in Journal of Management, volume 18, issue 2, June 1992, pages 267 to 294, identifier 10.1177/014920639201800204.
• Larson and Gobeli. The article “Matrix Management: Contradictions and Insights” in California Management Review, volume 29, issue 4, July 1987, pages 126 to 138, identifier 10.2307/41162135.
• Gahlinger. The report “Maritime Coalitions: When is Unity of Command Required”, 2007, identifier 10.21236/ada470786. According to Crossref it is a research report and not a peer reviewed article.
• Devlin. The report “Joint Operations in the Vicksburg Campaign Unity of Command or Unity of Effort”, 1998, identifier 10.21236/ada348824, also a research report.

We read the abstracts of Wren and colleagues (2002), Wren (2003), Knight, Ford and Randolph, Larson and Gobeli, Gahlinger, Devlin and Mintzberg (1980) as OpenAlex displays them, and we read the text of none of these works. For Simon we saw an excerpt of the article that a search engine returned, and not the full article. We saw neither the abstract nor the text of Galbraith, nor the text of the Mintzberg article, nor Fayol’s book.

What we write about Fayol’s principles comes from a secondary university course page at the University of Alberta School of Business. That page gives the principles in English and does not name the edition it used. We did not use consulting company pages as a source for any effect or benefit.

Where does the principle sit in Fayol’s list?

The course page places unity of command fourth among Fayol’s principles and phrases it as an employee receiving orders from one supervisor only. Its fifth principle is unity of direction, worded there as one head and one plan for a group of activities that share one objective. The two are separate entries in that list, and we keep them apart.

We did not read Fayol’s original text, and the translation the course page used is not named there. According to the abstract of Wren (2003), North American academics and students did not grasp the significance of Fayol’s book until many years after his death.

According to the same abstract, his ideas spread slowly, through four phases: translations, those who promoted his study, empirical analyses and new discoveries about his life.

The abstract of Wren, Bedeian and Breeze (2002) presents a rare, out of print translation and a previously untranslated and unpublished presentation, which according to the abstract show Fayol’s early reflections before they grew into his book. Neither abstract makes clear whether it addresses unity of command in particular.

How is the principle read?

The common wording refers to receiving orders for “a given piece of work”. The abstracts we read do not address whether the principle also covers who writes an employee’s appraisal, approves leave or guides a career, so we take no position. In our reading this question can be a source of practical confusion, because the person who orders a task and the person who answers for it may come apart inside one structure.

The principle is also separate from unity of direction, which concerns whoever leads a group of activities with one objective. It is separate from the scalar chain too, which the same course page describes as the line of supervisors from the highest authority to the lowest ranks. The scalar chain is a line through which supervisors pass, whereas unity of command concerns how many people give orders on one task. We draw that difference ourselves and do not attribute it to Fayol.

What does the Simon excerpt present about the principle?

Herbert A. Simon published an article in 1946 titled “The Proverbs of Administration”. The title alone points to administrative principles that circulate like proverbs. The excerpt we saw treats unity of command as follows. It is assumed that arranging the members of an organization in a definite chain of authority raises administrative efficiency, but obeying two conflicting orders at the same moment is physically impossible. So a principle of administration, if it is one, must offer something beyond that impossibility.

We did not read the rest of the article. The argument after the excerpt is not in our text, and neither is any alternative the article proposes. In this excerpt alone, the critique does not accuse a single supervisor of being wrong. It asks what the principle adds to the obvious point that two conflicting orders cannot both be carried out. This is our understanding of the excerpt and not an account of Simon’s whole position.

Unity of command in structures with two reporting lines

A structure in which an employee follows two lines at once, the functional manager and the project manager, goes by the name Matrix Organization. The principle’s question is easy to pose in structures of this kind: when both managers ask for something at the same time, whom does the employee turn to?

Published work revolves around this structure, and in the abstracts we read, the principle is not mentioned by name. The abstract of Ford and Randolph (1992) reviews the literature on cross functional forms published since 1976 and lists their advantages and disadvantages, closing that section with a discussion of the great need for empirical research to resolve numerous questions and paradoxes.

The abstract of Knight (1977) records that some people advocate ambiguity in role definition in the matrix. It then gives evidence that ambiguity can lead to stress and is often experienced as a major problem, and the abstract does not make clear what that evidence is. It presents a third option, which is to define responsibility and authority in the matrix clearly and consistently, and adds that the organization has to choose among the options.

The abstract of Larson and Gobeli (1987) adds data the authors collected from 500 experienced product development managers about three types of matrix. According to the abstract, the matrix remains the dominant way of carrying out development projects, and the project matrix type was judged the most effective. The abstract does not say who made that judgement, and the judgement does not show an effect.

Connecting this abstract to unity of command is our view, since the abstract does not name the principle. All we take from it is that a structure with two lines stayed in use in a sample of managers the authors studied, even though the Knight abstract records that role ambiguity in that structure is often experienced as a major problem.

We did not read the abstract or the text of Galbraith (1971). Its title points to combining the functional form with the project form, so we attribute to it no position on unity of command. We read the abstract of Mintzberg (1980) in OpenAlex and not the article itself. According to the abstract, matrix structure is listed among the design parameters as a liaison device and is tied to adhocracy. It does not list matrix structure as a sixth configuration, and it does not mention unity of command. Direct supervision, meaning one person directing another, is one of five coordinating mechanisms in Mintzberg’s account, as covered by Mintzberg Organisational Configurations.

Unity of command in military use

The term is found in the titles of two military research papers whose abstracts we read. The abstract of Gahlinger (2007) lists unity of command together with unity of effort and coalition command structures. It presents all three as viable across a broad spectrum of maritime coalition operations, each with ideal applications, and then announces that the paper will analyze how unity of command is applied.

The abstract of Devlin (1998), on the Vicksburg campaign, concludes that a systemized unity of command is essential in operational warfare. That is the paper author’s lesson from one historical campaign, and we do not carry it over to establishments.

We did not read the text of either paper. How official military references word the term lies outside what we consulted. All we take from these two papers is that the term is used in that field and is set beside a near neighbor, unity of effort. We do not ask a military comparison to carry more than it supports about civilian establishments.

How does it differ from nearby concepts?

• Unity of direction: One head and one plan for a group of activities with one objective, according to the wording of the course page. Unity of command concerns whoever directs the employee at work.
• Scalar chain: The line of supervisors from the highest authority to the lowest ranks. It describes the line of authority and not how many people give orders on a task.
• Number of subordinates per manager: The count of people who report to one manager belongs to Span of Control, which does not measure how many people give an employee orders.
• Who does what on a task: A table that records, for each task, who carries it out and who answers for the result is available as the RACI Matrix. Its idea comes close to the principle in making clear whom an employee turns to, which is our estimate and not something we found in a source.

A worked hypothetical example: 60 requests in a week for a team of 12

Take a hypothetical team of 12 employees whose coordinator logged every work request that reached them in one week, 60 requests in all. Of these, 42 came from their direct manager and 18 from a second source, a project coordinator, and 42 + 18 = 60. The direct manager’s share is 42 ÷ 60 = 70%, the project coordinator’s share is 18 ÷ 60 = 30%, and each employee averages 60 ÷ 12 = 5 requests a week.

The log shows that all 12 employees received requests from their manager and that 9 of them also received requests from the coordinator, which is 9 ÷ 12 = 75%. So 12 minus 9 leaves 3 employees who received requests from their manager alone. The coordinator classed 6 of the 18 requests as clashing in timing with an earlier request from the direct manager. That is 6 ÷ 18 = 33.3% of the coordinator’s requests and 6 ÷ 60 = 10% of all requests. The two percentages have different denominators, so they are not added together.

Assume that clarifying each clashing request takes half an hour of the employee’s time. This is an assumption we made up and not a measurement. Then 6 × 0.5 = 3 hours a week, which is 3 ÷ 12 = 0.25 hours, or 15 minutes, per employee on average. The team and the numbers are hypothetical, set out to show the method of calculation. They do not represent any establishment or study, and they do not show that having several people give orders harmed the work. Read the example as an exercise that turns the principle’s question into figures an establishment can collect from its log, and not as a judgement on any arrangement.

What is the role of HR?

HR can use the principle as a list of questions when reviewing job descriptions and structure. For each task, who gives the order? If an employee has two managers, who decides when their requests clash? Who writes the employee’s appraisal and approves leave? These questions are ours and not a procedure taken from a source. Structural decisions stay with those who hold them in management, and we think HR’s contribution to them lies in what it knows about jobs and the reporting lines that exist in practice.

Mistakes worth avoiding, in our reading

• Treating it as a law beyond discussion: The course page presents it as one principle in a list, and the Simon excerpt we saw asks what it adds.
• Attributing an effect to breaking it without a source: The Knight abstract gives evidence of stress from role ambiguity without making clear what the evidence is, and the Ford and Randolph abstract closes one section by stressing the need for empirical research. We attribute no effect to either.
• Mixing it up with unity of direction or the scalar chain: According to the course page, these are other entries in the same list.
• Asking more of it than it can carry: No abstract we read ties adherence to the principle to a measurable result in an establishment.

What are the limits of the concept and of what we know?

• Fayol’s text: We did not read it, and the wording of the principle we give comes from a secondary page.
• The rest of Simon’s critique: We saw only an excerpt, so we do not present the full argument.
• The positions of Galbraith and Mintzberg: We read nothing that ties either of them to the principle.
• Effect on performance: We found no study that measures the effect of following the principle on the performance of a particular establishment.
• Saudi context not examined: We found no Saudi study on the principle that we can rely on.

What do the sources permit us to conclude?

We do not conclude that following unity of command raises performance or discipline, nor that departing from it weakens them. What we have is abstracts of a limited set of works and an excerpt of one text. We attribute to a source nothing beyond what we took from its abstract and attributed to it.

We think it is better to treat the principle as a question put to a structure, namely who directs the employee on each task and what happens when two requests clash, and to judge any arrangement by the clarity or confusion that shows up in the establishment. What settles the matter after that may differ with the task, the team and the nature of the work.