Excerpts from the address of Professor C. Northcote Parkinson

Summary

This one-page typescript excerpt from Professor C. Northcote Parkinson’s address, delivered in Bombay on 23 February 1970, examines the weakening of authority in modern society. Parkinson identifies three foundations of parental authority—visible skill and ability, a sense of security, and fear—and argues that industrial affluence and changing family relations have eroded each of them. He also questions the belief that schools can compensate for the absence of discipline at home.

The excerpt then turns to leadership in industry. Parkinson contrasts the personal contact and reputation-based authority of the past with a modern environment in which leadership depends on reputation and power. He rejects the idea that leaders are born with an innate quality, presenting leadership instead as an art that can be learned through effort and minimal qualification. The page ends mid-sentence, indicating that the address continues on a missing second page.

Key points

• The excerpt frames the contemporary crisis as partly a crisis of authority, especially paternal authority.
• Parental authority is said to depend on demonstrated skill and ability, security, and fear.
• Industrial society weakens the family’s observational and disciplinary structures associated with agrarian life.
• Affluence has reduced the force of security as a means of establishing leadership.
• The authority of the father is presented as declining as children become less fearful and more resistant to authority.
• Parkinson doubts that schools can effectively replace discipline not provided at home.
• Industrial leadership is described as increasingly dependent on reputation and power.
• Leadership is treated as learnable rather than an inborn quality.