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Build "natural", flexible hierarchies

“We have to de-couple authority and influence from hierarchical position.”

As change accelerates, authoritarian power structures will become ever more untenable. In traditional hierarchies, power flows down from the top, rather than up from the bottom. This model has several unfortunate side effects. It tempts senior executives to hire in their own image, and thus reduces genetic diversity. It encourages managers to safeguard their careers by “managing up,” rather than by managing out and down. It produces frequent misalignments between positional power and leadership capability, and thereby undermines employee morale. To overcome these failings, the traditional top-down pyramid must be replaced by a “natural” hierarchy, where status and influence derive from the ability to lead rather than from the ability to accumulate positional power. In addition, hierarchies need to be dynamic, so that power flows rapidly toward those who are adding value and away from those who aren’t.

42 Stories
108 Hacks
6 Barriers

Build "natural", flexible hierarchies

“We have to de-couple authority and influence from hierarchical position.”

As change accelerates, authoritarian power structures will become ever more untenable. In traditional hierarchies, power flows down from the top, rather than up from the bottom. This model has several unfortunate side effects. It tempts senior executives to hire in their own image, and thus reduces genetic diversity. It encourages managers to safeguard their careers by “managing up,” rather than by managing out and down. It produces frequent misalignments between positional power and leadership capability, and thereby undermines employee morale. To overcome these failings, the traditional top-down pyramid must be replaced by a “natural” hierarchy, where status and influence derive from the ability to lead rather than from the ability to accumulate positional power. In addition, hierarchies need to be dynamic, so that power flows rapidly toward those who are adding value and away from those who aren’t.

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First Line Manager: The Key to Greatness Is Enabling Not Delegating.I keep trying to get a university to realize first line management is different from upper management, to no avail.
Story by Jim McGriff, Jr. on May 22, 2013
Payments company Tappr has quietly flown under the radar for sometime in the Brisbane start-up scene, and that's alright with the founder Brett Hales who founded Tappr in 2012. Tappr was based on
Story by Steve McCabe on December 29, 2015
Co-Authored By Steve McCabe
This is Karen's story. In 2011 a colleague and I attended a presentation at a conference. The speaker had made a mistake but had not realized it.
Story by Peter Rennie on July 14, 2013
My first real job was as a carpenter helper with Goodwin and Murphy construction company on a bridge building job on interstate 65 just south of Verbena, Alabama.
Story by Jim McGriff, Jr. on April 14, 2015
The Enterprise Social Networks of TravelFirst helps employees to connect more readily to address the unexpected.Addressing unexpected business challenges often requires identification and mobilization
Story by Paul Gromball on December 27, 2010
Everyone wants to be the leader and no one wants to be a follower, right?It certainly would seeem that way.
Hack by Nicola Kitson on March 8, 2014
When Henri Cartier Bresson described his photography, he said "There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment".
Barrier by David Mason on July 27, 2010

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