Going Boss-Free: Utopia or ‘Lord of the Flies’?

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Research shows that in response to uncertainty, “people tend to express their natural personality traits,” Grant adds. “This creates a risk that extroverts will gravitate toward being dominant and assertive, with introverts resorting to quieter, more reserved roles. The downside, of course, is that if boss-free organizations don’t manage norms carefully, they may end up missing out on some of the valuable ideas and contributions that introverts offer.”

The influence of extroverts versus introverts “depends on how decisions are made in the company,” says Cobb. “If it wound up that the loudest people dominated, then it would very quickly be a de facto hierarchy. If the decision process is that everyone has a vote, that might be less of a problem.”

Cobb points to another attribute that is necessary for bossless offices to function well — employee self-motivation, which is hard to screen for in the job hiring process. “Do you have to be motivated by extrinsic factors, or are you motivated by what you do?” asks Cobb. “Do you take pride in your craft, or your job? That would be the type of person to hire.”

Poor Grades for Bosses

John Hollon, a vice-president at TLNT.com and former editor of Workforce Management magazine and workforce.com, is a skeptic of bossless offices. “We have known for a long time that the layers of management are thinning,” especially during the current recession, he says. “But it’s virtually impossible for a company to get along without a few people who are in charge to do things like make sure employees get to work on time, decide that everyone will get a 3% raise instead of a 4% raise” and, above all, “tell Joe that he isn’t pulling his weight and it’s not fair to the rest of the team.”

For decades, Hollon adds, organizations were built on the military command and control model. “It offered a structure for getting decisions from the top down to the bottom and it had a chain of command that could get things done. What businesses found is that there are big downsides to how that chain of command can operate in anything less than life and death circumstances, which is what the military dealt with.” In the aftermath of the recession, “a lot of companies are waking up and saying they can do things differently. They don’t need as many layers of management.”

(MORE: 10 Business Cliches that Prove You’re Lazy)

In a blog post last month titled, “The Bossless Office Trend: Don’t Be Surprised If It Doesn’t Last Long,” Hollon refers his readers to a skit by the British comedy group Monty Python from their movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He notes in the post that “human beings usually don’t make group decisions all that well. Someone — anyone — needs to be the final arbiter if you ever want to get something decided and keep things moving ahead.” For most organizations, he adds, “a bossless environment would soon turn into a corporate version of Lord of the Flies.”

Bosses, on the other hand, don’t always get good reviews from the rank and file. A Towers Watson Global Workforce Study earlier this year surveyed 32,000 employees at mid- to large-size companies about such issues as workplace stress, work/life balance and the value of bosses. Bosses didn’t come out well. According to a preliminary summary of the findings reported by The Wall Street Journal, less than 50% of employees have confidence in their senior managers, and only 44% believe their managers care about their well-being. In addition, managers are seen as untrustworthy, they don’t provide adequate guidance and they “fail to inspire good work.”

Thomas Davenport, a senior consultant with Towers Watson and co-author of a book titled, Manager Redefined: The Competitive Advantage in the Middle of Your Organization, says the model of being a boss these days is evolving into what he calls “offstage management.” The idea, he notes, is that “nobody comes to work in the 21st century and says, ‘Please manage me.’ They say, ‘Create an environment where I can be successful.'”

In this scenario, managers provide the necessary resources, deal with office politics, make sure information gets channeled to the right places and so forth. The dissatisfaction comes with what Davenport calls “the manager death spiral,” which occurs when an organization promotes an employee to the position of boss based on the fact that she does her current job better than anyone else — rather than because she has demonstrated any leadership or mentoring skills. At the same time, no training for this new boss is available because the training programs have been eliminated and the HR staff has been downsized. “Essentially, the company has promoted the wrong person,” says Davenport, an action which does not suggest to employees that the company cares about their interests.

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