Why Managers Matter: The Perils of the Bossless Company

A manifesto on managers and hierarchy that bucks the trend of the lean, flat, leaderless organization

As business struggles to adapt to a rapidly changing world, managers are bombarded with a bewildering array of schemes for how to be a boss and make an organization tick. It’s tempting to be seduced by futurist fantasies where every company has the culture of a startup, and where employees in wacky, whimsical office settings, liberated from hierarchies and bosses that oppress them, are the foundation for breakthrough performance.

＂Get real,＂ warn Nicolai J. Foss and Peter G. Klein. These fads ironically lead to micromanaging and, often, to disaster. Companies and societies, they show, need authority and hierarchy to coordinate work, including creative work. And, counterintuitively, Foss and Klein illustrate how the creative use of authority and hierarchy helps companies to be more agile and flexible, enabling educated, motivated people and teams to thrive.

And not a moment too soon: Foss and Klein provide evidence that global challenges such as the proliferation of artificial intelligence, economic disruption, empowered knowledge workers, and black swan events such as the pandemic actually make hierarchy and the job of the manager more important than ever.

Nicolai J. Foss is a professor of strategy at the Copenhagen Business School, and one of the most cited European management scholars. He has authored many articles in the management research journals, and is a prolific contributor to policy and business debate as a newspaper columnist and contributor to practitioner-oriented magazines.
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Peter G. Klein is W. W. Caruth Endowed Chair, Professor of Entrepreneurship, and Chair of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Corporate Innovation at Baylor University. He was a Senior Economist at the US Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton Administration and is author or editor of six books and numerous articles, chapters, and reviews.
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