Several things happen when your team starts to perform. Firstly, people will notice. Then their implicit trust in your team will increase significantly. As their confidence grows, they will start to change their management style. Through working with you closely, they will start to recognize that command and control approaches with long chains of command only slow things down. They will look to shorten decision-making time by delegating responsibility to your team for certain business decisions.

As time goes on, they will delegate more and more responsibility, and so the leadership model begins to switch from a management role to a more supportive role. Leaders will start to get out of the way so their teams can get things done, and subsequently the chain of command in the form of the organizational hierarchy will begin to flatten.

This chapter looks at modern leadership and different approaches to organizational structure which allow for a more democratic workplace. These systems of organization aim to empower our teams. We employ smart people; treat them as such, and they will do great things.

It may be that the organization you work for isn't quite there yet, but through real-world examples, this chapter will help you recognize the signs that an organizational transformation is taking place. The aim is to give you a taste of what is possible so that you can start to tweak things according to your situation to take advantages of this transformative approach to working.