Delegated Levels Of Authority And Accountability

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Each management level must be clear in their accountabilities and responsibilities as well as the powers and authorities must be legally delegated to all positions. To ensure consistency in this regard, one must monitor the roles of Head Quarters of every organization, technical tools and have an internal Audit.

The Superior authority is allowed to delegate responsibilities and necessary level of decision making to the sub-ordinates. There are probabilities that sub-ordinates can misunderstood or misuse the delegated authority. Therefore, it is the responsibility of superiors to clearly specify the level of authority at the time of delegation.
Following are the delegated levels of authority and accountability:

Authority to Inform

Sub-ordinate is not authorized to make any decision at its own in accordance with the level or status it has within the organization. The superior will be informed for the set of action/alternatives and he or she has the authority to make the decision. Thus,   superior will be held accountable for the decision and activities implemented by the sub-ordinates. Additionally,

Authority to Recommend

The Sub-ordinate has the authority to list down the actions or alternatives and suggest one action. Superior will make the decision on the suggested action. IN case of accountability, the higher level is accountable for the selected decision that is either to be implemented or rejected.  However, the sub-ordinate is asked for the reasons for the provided suggestions. Thus every action, suggestion must be taken for the progress of the organization.

Authority to Report

Sub-ordinate has authority to select the action and implement the same to achieve the organizational objective. However, sub-ordinate is obliged for reporting to superior regarding the selection & implementation of action. Whereas, accountability for the actions is shared between sub-ordinate and superior because an incorrect action taken by a sub-ordinate must be corrected by the superior in the overall task.

Full Authority

With regard to full authority, sub-ordinate has authority to select action and implements it independently without supervision of superior. This is the high level of authority which superior can give to sub-ordinates to perform the activities to achieve business objectives.  However, the sub-ordinate is accountable for all his actions.

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