The new chain of command in modern organizations

Empowerment is a word that I fear we all hear way too much these days. Unfortunately many who profess to subscribe to this concept are challenged to deliver on it's true intent. At it's root I see it as an agreement, a trade really, the delegation of power or authority is given to the same degree that accountability is reciprocated. If someone is not truly empowered then they can never really be expected to be truly accountable.  If someone is only partially empowered then they behave like they are on crutches. Conversely, someone who is uncomfortable or avoids being accountable should never be fully empowered.

It's a hard thing to do well, in my view to empower someone fully means that you can never give them a direct order ever. Good communication, genuine mutual appreciation, trust, and healthy debate are the only tools that can be employed to develop buy-in for ideas within a modern organization where the goal is to minimize hierarchy as much as possible.

The industrialized world's organizational business structures emerged out of military tradition. As it continues to evolve we can see how important true empowerment has become. In the past I've worked with managers who've said things like: "Span of control must be limited to 7 direct reports, never more". I suppose this may be true for highly hierarchical organizational cultures like the military but in flat organizations it's simply untrue and very limiting.

The idea of chain of command remains in an interesting way though. It's coupled with trust in a way that is almost magical when the right kind of people get together. Empowering someone includes trusting their judgement and practices when it comes to hiring, firing, and empowering others. If they fully empower the folks they work with then it creates a chain. Trust and being right about empowering effective people can create a chain that is stronger and more effective than any other organizational structure in my experience. So when something really unfortunate happens it can always be traced back to the CEO in a sense. I accept that if someone I've empowered, hired, and empowered someone else who then did X, it's a reflection on me. If that is fully understood and appreciated then it has the potential to create very significant bonds and amazing culture. It also means that any weak links in the chain need to be uncovered and unempowered efficiently because as the saying goes, "the chain is only as strong as it's weakest link."

There is a dark side to this approach that comes with empowering someone who is capable of betraying the trust bond in a significant way. This has the potential to cause very serious damage to the organization and its culture especially if it's relatively small or just starting out. It has happened to me in the past and when it did, I was surprised to learn how resilient the rest of the organization was. I suspect that once the empowered culture is past 20-30 individuals it's less likely to be a significant risk. It's inspiring to look at companies like Valve and Github who have done this well and have proven it can scale.