Hierarchy versus Empowerment

This newsletter discusses the “business dilemmas” I encounter as a strategic advisor working for multiple organizations. The name of this newsletter is “the two Dragons” because these dilemmas often lead to fierce debates, difficult decision processes, and often a feeling of failure of not being able to reconcile the criteria, objectives, or values that seem to conflict with one another. 

If you have a business dilemma you’d like to discuss, get in touch with me through Linkedin or david@otolith.be .

Introduction

The “dragon battle” of this newsletter is about Hierarchy versus Empowerment. These two dragons have been around for a long time. Many people do not like hierarchy as it seems to create inequality. But organizations seem to fight it because of cost and inefficiency.

An example. When I was working in Germany, my employer talked about “Entburokratisierung” (Debureaucratization). But what was meant was delayering, a reduction of the number of managerial levels. It was a battle against hierarchy, of which there was plenty in that organization.

So please, follow me in this journey of thinking about hierarchy versus empowerment.

Let me introduce the first dragon: the hierarchy.

Dragon 1: Hierarchy

Can we imagine an organization without hierarchy? This is the question Edward E. Lawler III asked in his 1988 article on substitutes for hierarchy (1).

More than 30 years ago, he wrote that “the idea of extensive and expensive hierarchies is currently under attack as never before, particularly in organizations that face intense cost competition”, adding that “all members of the organizational hierarchy above the people who produce the organization’s products or services produce nothing of value“.

So, his first take “against” hierarchy was about costs and efficiency. I am using Lawler’s old article as an entry point for this discussion. Since he wrote the article, there have been many pro- and con-articles and points of view. Sometimes they are based on preference and anecdotes, but there is also research about the value of hierarchy in teams, organizations, and society.

When debating hierarchy, one could ask what the opposite of hierarchical structures would be? The inverse of a hierarchical structure would be an egalitarian, homogeneous one, without levels and no distinction between the men and women living or working in the organization. This idea comes close to the thought experiment of John Rawls (2) who described that the purest form of justice would be a society where there are no differences, where every man and woman is born with the same opportunities. As the distribution of talent, education, and social background is in real life not equal, Rawls argues that differences between people are acceptable as long as the group can benefit from them.

Let’s take a dive into what hierarchies are and what they do.

Functional versus Conflictual

A hierarchy divides people into levels. The people on the higher level are supposed to possess qualities that justify the level: competence, status, experience, age, power … People higher up have a larger influence than people who are lower in the hierarchy.

Psychologists adopt two approaches to hierarchy: a functionalist and a conflict approach. The idea of a functionalist approach is that a hierarchy generates value through the functions it holds.

Lawler (1) identified these functions of hierarchy:

• Coordination, assigning work, making personnel decisions, planning, Controlling, Recordkeeping
• Providing expertise
• Leading, Motivation of people, setting goals
• Communication, Training, and coaching

 

The conflict approach states that hierarchy is the source of conflict and that its value is in that case doubtful. This view is egalitarian and assumes that hierarchy should be avoided.

The Origins of Hierarchy

There are many discussions about the origins of hierarchy. If we go back to Lawler (1) I read that he states that

the need for extensive hierarchy has its foundations in the scientific management approach. When jobs are simple, standardized, and specialized, the need for coordination, control, and hierarchically driven motivation is greatly increased.

That is of course untrue. Scientific management has been blamed for many things, but the invention of hierarchy should not be one of them. Hierarchy has always existed. It is a natural phenomenon (3) that is known in all human societies but also in groups of animals. Think of the organization of beehives or ant colonies. And when a hierarchy is not explicit, a group of people will create it. (4)

True, scientific management has used hierarchical structures as a way to reach efficiency. Scientific management has split thinking from doing, reserving the former for the higher levels of hierarchy and the latter for the lower, operational levels. The hierarchy here has to be seen as an instrument of control.

Is Hierarchy Inevitable?

Hierarchy is indeed inevitable. Even when an organization tries to be egalitarian, it seems to be impossible to reach that ultimate and often idealized state. Some people will acquire more status or influence than others and so, hierarchy is born. No matter how hard we fight against hierarchy, it will always pop up in some formal or informal way. (3) The message is not to fight it, but to shape it so that its benefits are bigger than its cost. To see hierarchy as a lever, with all its imperfections, helps to change the uneasy feeling we often have.

And we must also acknowledge that all people want to have a certain influence or power, but not to the same extent. Hierarchy might even occur because of this need and because of the differences between people. There are people who end up in leaderlike roles and others seem to seek the role of the follower.

People who have a high and often implicit need for power, would be more eager to climb the ladder or to take influence, also in egalitarian settings. This suggests that it is impossible to build egalitarian organizations, unless people in it have no personal ambitions. We know that this is an illusion. We also know that people with leaderlike behavior or more likely to get promoted and the hierarchy perpetuates itself because of that.

But Lawler (1) disagrees. He says that “hierarchy is not inevitable; it is a manufactured need. As such, the need for it can be substantially reduced“. The fact that hierarchy is so overwhelmingly present and that it is also informally created suffices for me to prove him wrong. Possibly, Lawler wrote his article in a time hierarchy was seen as a source of conflict and oppression, and cost. And to me, the article is more opinionating than it is based on evidence.

The Bad reputation of Hierarchy

It’s useful to think of the reasons why hierarchy in itself has a bad reputation. It comes from many sources.

1. An organization that has a culture of control tends to develop hierarchical structures that increase organizational inefficiency. So-called “Red tape” is created. Red tape as a function of organizational structure generally and of formalization, centralization, and hierarchy specifically. The formalization, centralization or hierarchy can be pathological, exaggerated (5).
2. A hierarchy ranks individuals and groups on the basis of relevant criteria of sources of influence (3). It is a cultural product. In organizations that have less need for control, chances are that hierarchy will be less developed or less dominant. Most organizations build control systems. Hierarchy can be one of them. But we know that when control is excessive, people will feel distrusted. And, the experience of autonomy deteriorates.
3. Ranking people or groups leads to behavioral risks. People might feel “better” than others. There is a sense of unfairness related to hierarchies. The feeling of power that comes from holding a higher position might lead and has lead to abuse. Many cases of harassment, and embezzlement are linked to the abuse of hierarchical positions. And because of the bad behavior of some leaders, the organizational dimension of hierarchy gets its bad name.
4. Many leaders are incompetent and the experience of incompetent leaders radiates. Remember the people principle, that states that people get promoted up to the point they reach their level of incompetence.
5. In an age that shows preference of egalitarianism, every ranking is seen as undesirable. Maybe it’s also the Zeitgeist that puts hierarchy in a bad light.
6. And finally, hierarchies might be bad for performance. There seems to be a general negative effect of hierarchy on both team performance and team viability. In contrast to what we could assume – hierarchies are not good at coordinating, and they seem to instill conflict in teams (8)
7. And when hierarchies change too often, they are contested. This means that a stable hierarchy is better than one that changes often over time. (8) The tenure of CEOs has been declining and too often an executive leaves the chair long before the long-term consequences of their decisions are clear.

 

In Defense of Hierarchy

John Child argues that hierarchy can be a positive force as long it is not misused for personal profits (6).

And it can be a force for good, as long as there is no exaggeration. In this sense, Child (6) follows the same reasoning as Lawler (1) in saying that hierarchies can be designed in such a way that the positive aspects can be maintained, while the downsides can be eliminated.

So the challenge is to reconcile the fact that hierarchies exist – they are inevitable – and the fact that they might have a detrimental effect on performance and personal experience.

Alternatives for Hierarchy

In his search for alternatives, Lawler (1) lists a number of practices that today seem to be obvious. He states that hierarchy can be substituted if organizations engage in work design, digitalize, create transparancy on financial data, adapted reward systems, direct customer contact, reskill/upskill people, build vision and values and allow for emergent leadership.

This list sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It is as if little has changed since he wrote that article. Today we focus a lot on autonomy and empowerment as preferred organizational principles, but the way we establish autonomy is through the practices listed above.

Lawler (1) also warns that “without a thorough redesign of the organization, however, it is unlikely that a significant part of the hierarchy can be made unnecessary. Hierarchies perform some very important organizational functions that must be done in some way if coordinated, organized behavior is to take place. On the other hand, if an organization design is adopted that includes work teams, new reward systems, extensive training, and the various other practices considered here, organizations can operate effectively with substantially less hierarchy“.

So what could this redesign be?

Networked Organizations as Alternative

An often cited alternative for the hierarchy is the networked organization (7).

Moving from a hierarchical architecture to a network organization is not easy. Changing the social structures is in itself a process that takes time and may involve political struggles. Networked organizations are more vulnerable to fraud because accountability is less developed (7).

Heterarchy

Network architectures might include hierarchies, even though they might be less centralized. These heterarchies function like a network, but the nodes of the network might be hierarchical. An example can be found in the networks of hospitals that cope with the many budgetary and operational challenges. They can operate together without touching their cultural and structural characteristics and do not need a centralized point of authority.

Holacracy

Holacracies, or sociocracies, decentralize decisions as much as possible. Holacracies are idealized organizations and there are not that many examples for it. Usually organizations like Zappos and the like are quoted. But very often, holacracies are difficult to establish and difficult to maintain. Many experiments with autonomy-based organizations seem to fail over time because they are evaluated according to standard procedures, or because organizations try to go there for a limited number of reasons (like cost-savings).

The problem is that trying to create holacracies is so much more than a methodology. It is a philosophy that only would work if everyone, including the shareholders, is convinced that the purpose of the organization is more than return on equity, but also return on experience. And the test of this conviction is when the results of the organization do not meet the expectations.

All the alternatives for hierarchical organizations have one thing in common: they try to increase individual influence through some kind of empowerment. So, It is time to introduce the second dragon: Empowerment.

Dragon 2: Empowerment

A Definition of Empowerment

Empowerment is about giving “power” to people. Empowering others means that they can take more influence on the processes and projects they are involved in. Empowerment contradicts the notion of hierarchy as it does not concentrate power in one person or one layer.

But empowerment also means giving energy (“power”) to people. It’s about making sure people are and willing able to take more influence.

Four Dimensions

Empowerment has four dimensions: Meaning (why), Self-Determination, Competence, and Impact. Meaning is about the experience of purpose. Self-determination is about the perceived freedom and the level of control some has. Competence is about the feeling that one has the capabilities to do a job. And finally, impact is about the influence one has on progress. (9).

The link with motivational theories like the self-determination theory is clear (10). And so, the word autonomy pops up. Is empowerment the same as autonomy? Autonomy can be defined as the space one experiences to make deliberations. In motivational psychology, autonomy is the possibility to decide whether to do something. It’s about free will. Autonomy is not the same as freedom. When a work environment does not offer autonomy, the psychological needs of people are frustrated.

Advantages of Empowerment

There are many advantages of empowerment (9, 11).

• People feel motivated and have more chances to learn. They will also engage in more entrepreneurial behavior, which might generate opportunities for the organization.
• Empowerment leads to higher Job satisfaction.
• When people feel empowered, processes are faster. There is no need to ask for permissions which leads to delays.
• When people are empowered, there is less need to invest in control as people can take decisions.
• Customers feel that doing business with the organization is more effortless, leading to increased levels of customer loyalty.
• And empowerment is also good for well-being, as long as the level of empowerment is balanced with the capabilities of people.

 

Solving the Dilemma

Both concepts seem to be mutually exclusive or correlate negatively. But is that so? Or does this have to be? How can organizations coordinate or create alignment without some mechanisms in place?

Excessive hierarchy reduces efficiency and generates undesired psychological outcomes. Hierarchy and empowerment do not have to be contradictory. The idea in dilemma thinking is to try and reconcile sometimes opposing values or positions.

There are 5 steps to think about dilemmas:

Step 1 is to consider the importance of each dragon. Hierarchy can contribute to an organization’s success as it creates alignment, coordination, and support. Empowerment is also important as it leads to motivation, commitment, wellbeing, speed, and innovation.

Step 2 is to divide the continuum of each value into three (or more) levels: not enough, the right level, and too much. Can a hierarchy be too excessive? Of course. Can one be too empowering? Of course.

Step 3 is to put the conflicting values in conjunction. It helps to put them on two axes and discuss the various positions. What about high levels of hierarchy and low empowerment? Are there circumstances where this is tolerable? I guess not. We want moderate to high levels of empowerment, with acceptable levels of hierarchy. An acceptable level of hierarchy does not lead to the deterioration of empowerment.

Step 4 is to look for a third value that could be overarching both values. In this case, it could be strategy execution, sustainable results, and organizational attractiveness. One could speak about empowering hierarchies.

Step 5 is to find ways how both values can reinforce one another in order to become more effective. Developing hierarchy to an appropriate level creates contexts that support strategy execution. If the hierarchy is populated with empowering leaders, there will be no aversion to hierarchy. Hierarchy becomes a source of positive people and business outcomes.

Empowering Leadership

The answer lies in empowering leadership (11), or autonomy-enhancing leadership (10). This is a kind of leadership that empowers people. Many adjectives are being used for this. The idea is similar. By stimulating people to take responsibility, leaders create positive job outcomes:

• Empowering leaders enjoy higher levels of trust and are perceived to be more effective.
• Empowering leadership leads to higher levels of motivation
• Empowering leadership leads to positive emotions and attitudes like knowledge sharing, work engagement, job satisfaction, and commitment.
• Higher performance, more specifically creativity and innovation,

 

When leaders are empowering, the hierarchy becomes a force for good. If that is the case, the hierarchy will also be acceptable because people will experience it as meaningful.

Leaders who empower will use personal characteristics as the basis for their leadership and will not use power, position, popularity, or pressure to get people moving towards the target.

General Advice

When thinking about organizational design, which exceeds organizational structure, here are some design principles that might help in fighting this dragon battle:

1. Look at hierarchy as a contextual element that influences the behavior of people. Hierarchy can either be supportive of the desired behavior or it can limit it. The outcome of a successful hierarchy must be positive people and business outcomes.
2. Do not excessively centralize but apply the principle of subsidiarity. Put decision-making as low as possible in the organization, as close as possible to the customers. Centralization always slows the organization down as bottlenecks are created. And far-away headquarters that want to impose their ways of thinking on local operations always create a bitter kind of feeling of injustice (or incompetence).
3. Use the concept of effort, equity, and experience to evaluate the structure. If hierarchy adds more effort than it reduces, there might be a problem. If a hierarchy minimizes the feeling of equity, e.g. problematic or aleatory distribution of resources and rewards there might be a problem. If people experience the hierarchy as being heavy and populated by power-driven and maybe incompetent leaders, there might be a problem.
4. It’s always a good idea to limit the number of layers to a minimum: as few as possible, as much as needed. But don’t make the number of layers into a fetish KPI. If you delayer in a blunt way, the organization might lose the motivation and expertise of valuable people. And if the organization is growing, evolving towards a heterarchy might be a good idea. Organizations become then clusters of smaller hierarchies that have each a high level of empowerment. The advantage of this is that people remain close to the decision-making and that hierarchy keeps a human face.
5. Do not separate strategic thinking from strategic action. Hierarchies can become petrified when they have been there for a long time. A pure top-down approach not only can work counterproductive, but it is also just ineffective. When dealing with strategic questions, it is always good to involve those who know best. In my humble experience, people who deal with operations know best. And by doing that, hierarchies become channels of communication and exchange rather than a way to control.
6. Make sure that leaders who “populate” the hierarchy engage in autonomy-supportive behavior. Select leaders who are not excessively high on power orientation and scan for possible derailers in their profile.
7. Stimulate leaders to break the ceilings that seem to take form in hierarchies. There are many techniques to do that. But they all are based on organizing conversations that cross divisional and hierarchical boundaries. I work often with temporary associations of talent (TAT) to do this. These are temporary groups of people who volunteer that deal with strategic questions. One of the techniques to do this is “Strategic Doing (TM)”.
8. Whatever you do, make sure teams have a high sense of accountability. The purpose of each team must be clear to both the team members and the customers of the team. Accountability also comes with responsibility and authority. There’s no point in holding teams accountable without giving them enough autonomy. Many organizations have a detailed delegation of authority. It would be we wise to revisit that delegation of authority not only from a risk perspective but also from a motivational and organizational perspective.
9. Keep the hierarchy stable. When leaders change too often, the hierarchy becomes irritating. New leaders need some time to “conquer” the position and each time there’s a change in leadership, the belief in the hierarchy is weakened. As one employee told me: “they go away to build their career, but they leave us behind with their mess“. The need for stability is somehow contradictory to the need to rotate leaders. So, a balance needs to be found between both.
10. Social technologies can improve the quality of hierarchies. When lateral collaboration becomes easier without hierarchical intervention, the power dimension of hierarchies reduces. Don’t forget that hierarchies become a liability when they stop people from behaving in ways that contribute value. Some side-effects of (bad) hierarchical structures is that people need to adapt to the power play of people higher in hierarchies. And that is what social technologies can avoid.

 

Conclusion

When designing a strategy, do not start with an organization chart. This is one of the last steps. The hierarchy should help organizations achieve their strategy, so it must support the development of organizational capabilities. Ask yourself the question of how the hierarchy will support capabilities such as trust, collaboration, learning and change, engagement, wellbeing, and resilience.

Resolving the dilemma is possible if we look at hierarchy as a lever for organizational success.

In short, when thinking of hierarchy, too much of it is never a good thing. But not enough might not be desirable either.

First Published on https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hierarchy-versus-empowerment-david-ducheyne/

Notes

(1) Lawler, E.E. (1988). Substitutes for Hierarchy. Organizational Dynamics, 17(1), pp. 5-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/0090-2616(88)90027-7

(2) Rawls, J. A Theory of Justice.

(3) Dubreuil, B. (2010). Human Evolution and the Origins of Hierarchies: The State of Nature. Cambridge University Press.

(4) Gruenfeld, D. & Tienens, L. (2010). Organizational Preferences and their consequences. in: Fiske, S.T., Gilbert, D.T. & Lindzey, G. (Eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology, John Wiley & Sons, pp. 1252 – 1287.

(5) Kaufmann, W., Borry, E.L. & De Hart-Davis, L. (2018). More than Pathological Formalization: Understanding Organizational Structure and Red Tape. Public Administration Review, 79(2), pp. 236–245

(6) Levy, O. & Reiche, B.Sebastian (2017). The politics of cultural capital: Social hierarchy and organizational architecture in the multinational corporation. Human Relations, (), 001872671772920–. doi:10.1177/0018726717729208

(7) Child, J. (2019). Hierarchy. A Key Idea for Business and Society. London, Routledge, 150 pp.

(8) Greer, L. L., de Jong, B. A., Schouten, M. E., & Dannals, J. E. (2018). Why and when hierarchy impacts team effectiveness: A meta-analytic integration. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(6), 591–613. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000291

(9) Matthew, J & Nair, S. (2021). Psychological Empowerment and Job Satisfaction: A Meta-analytic Review. Vision, The Journal of Business Perspective, 1(10), https://doi.org/10.1177/0972262921994350

(10). Deci, E.L., Olafsen, A.H. & Ryan, R.M. (2017). Self-Determination Theory in Work Organizations: The State of a Science. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 4(1)

(11) Kim, M., Beehr, T.A. & Prewitt, M.S. (2018). Employee Responses to Empowering Leadership: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051817750538