Command and control, authoritarian, hierarchical.
We tend to think of these as relics of a bygone era… yet despite an overlay of something more inclusive and collaborative, the majority of corporate cultures still operate from these mindsets.
The first question is whether that matters. After all someone must make the decision and hierarchy provides clarity. It lets everyone know where they stand. It enables decision making and faster working.
But it also constrains development, hides risk, stifles creativity and concentrates power in ways that breed myopia — and sometimes narcissism.
Culture as we know is a tough nut to crack and has its roots at the birth of the organisation – from the founders. Founders imprint their mindset, attitudes and behaviours so deeply that they echo through successive executive teams long after those founders have gone. Only deliberate, sustained effort — defining the culture you want, and recruiting and developing leaders who can embody it — can loosen that grip.
However, in many organisations there has been insufficient attention paid to a systematic approach to cultural development resulting in visible and invisible cultures living side by side.
In the mid 1980s, British Airways faced this head on. A major cultural revolution began with a dramatic shattering of the container: a sweeping departure of senior leaders. The old structure was broken on purpose.
What followed was a decade of investment, new talent, leadership development and a re writing of the organisation’s “rules of engagement.” Hierarchy didn’t disappear — but it evolved. It became a flexible framework rather than a rigid cage, enabling rather than constraining. Not perfect, but undeniably transformative.
Sustaining such a shift requires belief, continuity and courage — especially when adversity hits. Those qualities are not always upheld.
Yet when a culture has crystallised into something immovable, something must break. The container, the patterns, the power structures that keep everything stuck must be disrupted for anything new to emerge. Sometimes this comes from a leader’s epiphany. Sometimes from external pressure or a burning platform. Sometimes from the wisdom — or sheer necessity — of the most senior leader recognising that the system itself must change.
In every situation where cultural change is needed it is the senior leadership that either protects the container till the death, consciously or unconsciously, or recognises the need for change and set about shattering it, brutally or through sustained systemic transformation.
Consciously choosing the ingredients for a healthy culture is precious, delicate and complex work; the right amount of hierarchical structure, the opportunity for genuine collaboration and participation, the promotion of creativity and risk taking, mutual feedback – regardless of rank and positional authority and so much more. If we are to build organisations which reflect the true potential of all, then being willing to see – truly see – the shackles that hold the organisation back must be a priority.
The world around us is undergoing its own series of shattered containers. Organisations are not exempt.
As leaders, we have the choice to be part of the systemic change or become part of the collateral damage when the old is swept away. Tough, yes. But necessary.