Management Principles: What They Are, Key Authors and Examples

Table of Contents

• Definition of management principles
• Origin: Henri Fayol's 14 principles
• What are management principles for?
• The 4 management processes
• Characteristics of administrative principles
• Management principles by author
• Current examples

  • A service business and unity of command
  • A remote team and order
  • A startup that breaks unity of command
  • Toyota and division of work
• Difference between principles, functions and processes
• Are they still relevant today?
• Keep reading

Management principles are the universal rules that guide how a company plans, organizes, directs and controls its work. They were formulated by the French engineer Henri Fayol in the early twentieth century and they are still the foundation of modern management. Their goal is simple: help a group of people reach common goals efficiently, making good use of the resources available.

In this guide you will see what they are, who formulated them, what they are for and how they are applied today, with examples. If you already have the basics, continue with Fayol's 14 principles one by one, with examples or with the introduction to Fayol's management compared with Agile.

Definition of management principles

A principle, in management terms, is not a fixed physical law. It is a fundamental truth that has guided the behavior of managers for more than a century. Fayol described them as "reference points" that adapt to each situation, not as rigid rules.

More specifically, management principles are:

• Universal: they apply to any kind of organization (company, NGO, government, sports club).
• Guiding: they inform decisions rather than dictate them. A good manager knows when to bend them.
• Interrelated: none of them works alone. Division of work without coordination creates chaos.
• Practical: they came from observing real factories, not from pure theory.

The key word is efficiency: getting the best result with the fewest resources (time, money, people). Principles exist to reduce waste.

Origin: Henri Fayol's 14 principles

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) was a French mining engineer who ran the Commentry-Fourchambault-Decazeville steel company for decades. Unlike Frederick Taylor, who studied the efficiency of the worker at their station, Fayol looked from the top: he cared about how the whole company was run.

In his book Administration Industrielle et Générale (1916) he proposed:

1. The 5 management functions (forecasting, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling — later condensed into 4: planning, organizing, directing and controlling).
2. The 14 principles that guided them.
3. A set of qualities a manager should have.

They were so influential that for decades Western management was built on them. Today they are considered classics: useful, but to be combined with modern approaches (agile, distributed leadership, systems thinking).

What are management principles for?

They help to:

1. Reduce improvisation. Without principles, every decision starts from scratch. Principles offer shortcuts: "when facing this dilemma, this is what usually works".
2. Align a team. If the whole leadership shares the same principles, decisions are consistent across departments.
3. Train new managers. A new department head can start with a frame of reference instead of learning by trial and error.
4. Diagnose problems. Many business conflicts are violations of a principle: confusion over who gives orders (against unity of command), lack of initiative (against the principle of initiative), high turnover (against stability of tenure).
5. Scale the company. What works with 10 people breaks with 100, and breaks again with 1,000. Principles help you anticipate those breaking points.

The 4 management processes

This is where the most common confusion appears: what is the difference between principles and processes?

• Processes are the 4 big phases of management work.
• Principles are the rules that guide how those phases are carried out.

Process	What happens	Key associated principle
Planning	Setting goals and how to reach them	Unity of direction
Organizing	Assigning tasks, authority and resources	Division of work
Directing	Motivating, communicating and guiding people	Unity of command, equity
Controlling	Measuring results and correcting deviations	Discipline, responsibility

Without processes there is no management. Without principles, processes become chaotic. You need both.

Characteristics of administrative principles

• They are universal but flexible. They apply in any context, but adapt to culture, size and sector.
• They are indicative. They are not laws: they guide, they do not force.
• They are complementary. Some seem contradictory (centralization vs. decentralization); the manager's craft is to balance them for each moment.
• They evolve. Fayol formulated 14; today people debate which ones still hold and how to reinterpret them in agile or remote companies.
• They can be taught and learned. They are not a manager's "natural gift": you study them, practice them and get better at them.

If you want to see these principles applied end to end in a real organization, the administrative principles case in a small business follows them step by step.

Management principles by author

Although Fayol is the name most associated with management principles, the history is richer. Four classical authors explain almost everything that is taught today:

Author	Approach	Key principles	More detail
Henri Fayol (1916)	General management: how the whole company is run	14 principles, including division of work, unity of command, scalar chain and equity	Fayol's 14 principles
Frederick Taylor (1911)	Scientific management: the efficiency of individual work	Scientific study of each task, selection and training of workers, cooperation between management and workers, division of responsibility	Foundations of management
Max Weber (1922)	Bureaucracy: an organization based on rules	Clear hierarchy, written rules, impersonality, selection and promotion on merit	Foundations of management
Elton Mayo (1924–1932)	Human relations: the human factor at work	Motivation, belonging to the group and informal relationships, based on the Hawthorne experiments	—

Fayol won the cultural battle over "principles", but modern management draws on all four.

Current examples

A service business and unity of command

A ten-person agency receives requests from the owner, from the account manager and sometimes straight from the client. Each designer ends up with three lists of priorities. Applying unity of command does not require more hierarchy: it is enough that each request has a single owner who assigns the work, and that everyone else asks through them.

A remote team and order

In a team spread across several time zones, the principle of order ("a place for everything and everything in its place") turns into documents and channels: where decisions are made, where they are recorded and where questions go. Without that order, the team loses hours searching for information or repeating meetings.

A startup that breaks unity of command

A tech startup gives each developer two leads: a technical one (tech lead) and a product one (product manager). This breaks classical unity of command, but it works in highly uncertain contexts. It is an example of how principles are adapted, not applied dogmatically.

Toyota and division of work

Toyota organizes its plants into small teams with tightly defined but rotating tasks. Division of work is extreme (each operator knows exactly what to do), but rotation prevents boredom and supports continuous improvement (the principle of initiative).

Difference between principles, functions and processes

Concept	Definition	Example
Principle	Guiding rule	"Unity of command"
Function	Large area of management work	"Planning"
Process	Sequence of steps to carry out a function	"Annual strategic planning"
Technique	Specific tool	"SWOT analysis"

• Principles say why and in which direction.
• Functions say what has to be done.
• Processes say how, step by step.
• Techniques are the tools you use at each step.

Are they still relevant today?

Yes, with nuances. Principles are not applied in 2026 the way they were in 1916:

• Division of work: still valid, but complemented by versatility (T-shaped skills).
• Unity of command: in question. Matrix structures and autonomous teams challenge it.
• Hierarchy: flatter, but it still exists.
• Initiative and stability of tenure: more relevant than ever in the war for talent.

The mistake is not using the principles, but applying them as dogma. The criticism of Fayol explains where that dogma holds a company back. The companies that work best today reinterpret them in light of culture, technology and purpose.

Keep reading

• Practical case: administrative principles in a small business
• The complete list: Fayol's 14 principles, one by one
• An introduction with an agile lens: Fayol's management compared with Agile
• The critical view: criticism of Fayol and his 14 principles
• The theoretical framework: foundations and characteristics of management
• How an organization is structured: principles of organization in management
• People: human resource principles