How does a flat organizational structure affect leadership styles?

A flat organizational structure affects leadership styles by encouraging a more collaborative and inclusive approach, where leaders act as facilitators rather than authoritative figures. It requires leaders to focus on empowering team members, promoting autonomy, and fostering open communication, as decision-making is more decentralized. Leaders in a flat structure often need to be adaptable, approachable, and skilled in influencing and guiding rather than directing, as they rely more on consensus and collaboration to achieve goals.

Some key benefits of a flat structure: - higher engagement and participation - greater flexibility and ownership - reduced levels of barriers across functions that encourage rapid decision making and resolution - greater facilitation rather than top-down direction

Our research on 150+ flat organizational structures is clear: the benefits are wide and varied. From increased employee engagement to improved financials. One of the most powerful transformation approaches we've researched is the so-called 'NER approach'. This approach to flat organizations has resulted (on average in 50 organizations) in the following improvements: 👉 Revenues +80% 👉 Profit +200% 👉 Productivity +40% 👉 Accidents -86% 👉 Absenteeism -32% What's not to like?

Trust is Key: Effective team leadership begins with trust in the abilities and judgment of the team. In a team that can make its own decisions, ideas can start to blossom, often yielding innovative and surprising solutions. 🌱✨

Flat structures are coupled with several advantages: Efficient work distribution - Increased in-house mobility as people move to critical work regardless of their team origin - Improved resource allocation as jobs are fit to talent and available skills through finer-grained roles - Reduced overhead costs as managerial roles are transformed into roles with more direct customer value Smoother information flow - Information is more balanced across functions, teams, and silos - Greater innovation as ideas cross-pollinate with fewer barriers via transversal projects Employee satisfaction - Increased sense of autonomy and initiative-taking - Higher employee trust as information transparency is given more importance

If not structured well, flat organizations can easily turn into chaos or a 'hierarchy in disguise'. Both are highly undesirable and can lead to disengagement, disillusionment, lack of clarity, and untapped potential. One of the many misconceptions of flat organizations is that there's not much structure, but if you look at the most successful and large flat organizations, you see that they actually have a great amount of structure. The structure isn't a top-down structure, it's a peer-to-peer structure.

Focus on mentorship and people development often suffers as a manager's number of direct reports increases significantly. A flat structure can do well where team members can receive mentorship from other parts of the organization, or are advanced enough in their career to need less direct guidance.

It's important to state that the drawbacks mentioned in the question aren't actually due to a flat structure but to poor leadership. Unclear roles, a lack of career development, and conflict are outcomes of management styles that allow those things to persist, they are not a direct cause from ANY kind of structure.

It's often unclear how work gets done in the absence of a reporting line hierarchy. For example: who makes the final call if it's not your manager? Without explicit agreements on how people should work together in the flat structure, and a shared understanding of how work and responsibility is distributed, they may resort to politicking and social influence to get things done. Employees in flat organizations often remain unaware of the new informal power dynamics and hidden hierarchies that naturally emerge in a flat structure.

Sometimes flat structures create blurry lines between ownership which can boil up. Unknown ownership can lead to no actions being taken which create negative impacts that aren't caught until too late. Having a very lean team as the company grows can create burn out for some key employees. When burn strikes not being able to see clearly how your efforts will impact the way you get promoted can create tension between employee and businesses. This usually leads even the best employees to start looking for new opportunities.

To achieve the potential benefits of flatter organizations, their leaders need to adapt their styles to leading in more adaptive and more ambiguous conditions. Flatter organizations strive to find solutions from a broader set of contributors than senior management or established experts. For more individuals to contribute, their leaders need to communicate more context and more strategic priorities, to share success criteria, to foster relationships across the organization, and to create conditions for collaboration. Beyond investing significant effort to ensure multi-directional communications among many stakeholders, leaders in flatter organizations must grow comfortable and capable of working in a “power-with” vs. “power-over” manner.

As a founder of an agile organization, it has been important to me from the beginning to shape leadership differently – or if possible, not have to lead at all. Over the years, I have refined my perspective on leadership and realized that effective leadership, for me, is an essence of 'constantly seeking ways to provide as much autonomy as possible to everyone on the team,' while simultaneously facilitating the agreement on what as a team we want to adhere to, in order to focus and achieve the goals necessary for building the company.

Beyond the servant/transformational/laissez faire leadership styles there is something that is consistently present amongst leadership styles in successful flat structures: trust. This works both ways, as leaders themselves have to put trust in their people, and in the structures and mechanisms that have been co-created to enable the flat organisation. On the flip side, for the wider workforce to successfully drive the organisation forward they need to trust that their leadership are fully endorsing of the flat structure and that they will still play a guiding/supportive role. Transparency and openness has a big part to play here to support the creation of trust between leadership and their teams.

Leading in a flat structure indeed presents unique challenges. Balancing empowerment and accountability is crucial. Leaders must delegate authority and responsibility while maintaining focus on overall objectives and outcomes. Effective communication and coordination are essential to ensure information and feedback flow seamlessly across teams and departments. Additionally, providing opportunities for learning, growth, and recognition is vital. Managing change and fostering a culture of experimentation, risk-taking, and learning from failure are also key. This requires leaders to navigate the uncertainty and complexity of a dynamic environment with agility and resilience.

It's very easy for leaders to get sucked into the weeds of day-to-day work within flat organizations. It's easy to say "I'll just do it" to make sure its done right. The problem is now you are the person doing it every time but instead you should be leading. I have seen this where even CTOs and CMOs are still doing hands-on work but ignoring their most critical duties. This happens less in traditional organizational structures because leaders are almost forced out of the weeds on a daily basis.

El liderazgo en una estructura plana es mucho más dinámico ya que al no contar con autoridad de facto, cualquier persona tiene que mantener un continuo aporte de valor para ser reconocido como líder. Es también el liderazgo un factor no excluyente en el sentido de que tu posición no te hace la mejor persona para el trabajo sino la idoneidad para la tarea, por lo que perfectamente pueden convivir varios líderes en mismo proyecto o equipo.

I'm not sure it is on the leader to provide some of the things that the text above suggests, I think it is upon the organisation to enable people to develop their own growth plans and to support them through it, through self organising teams or frameworks. The leader's role is to advise and help people make the right choices. We talk about avoiding a parent-child relationship - everyone is an adult and able to make informed decisions with the right advice

Acredito que o maior desafio é abrir mão do poder. Hoje, para sermos líderes, somos educados e treinados para comandar e controlar através do conhecimento de métodos e processos, sendo muito pouco considerando aspectos do comportamento e relacionamentos humanos. E mudar esta condição dependerá de muito esforço para quebrar padrões e paradigmas ultrapassados.

Em estrutura plana as oportunidades estarão disponíveis de acordo com os desafios e necessidades do momento. Líderes serão eleitos naturalmente devido a competências e características natas e relevantes para o momento, portanto, liderança terá alternância entre os integrantes.

Because leaders in a healthy flat structure organisation need to let go of classic leader-responsibilities like task-distribution, quality control or giving professional feedback, they are freed up to pursue other interests and goals. They have to look inwards and find their own motivation: what expert do I want to be? What is my gift to the world? Which of my skills can best contribute to this organisation? The opportunity for leaders is to grow their interests and skills and become highly driven and motivated themselves - just like everyone else...

Doing transition towards flat organization is not limited to organizational design with less levels and removing managers. It is a combination of governance, tool, people and organisational rhythm. Governance - Role based structure - Rules for operations - Rules to update structure Tools - Make the structure transparent - To support meetings - Manage tasks - To communicate - To structure and store information People - Change management - Training - Coaching Operational rhythm - Cadence - Weekly, monthly, quarterly - Objectives

Precisamos ter consciência que o "Poder" deve ser transferido naturalmente para equipes autônomas. Sendo este Poder discutido e pulverizado para quem contribui. Vale enfatizar, talvez ainda não tenhamos saúde psicológica para assumir toda a responsabilidade e, portanto, é necessário a reeducação, tanto dos integrantes da Equipe como dos possíveis superiores ou donos de empresas. Reinventar as Organizações é urgente!