Fire Your Boss: How Companies Without Hierarchy Are Getting Ahead

It used to be the man made the company. Great businesses were personified in the figures of their visionary bosses like Jack Welch, Michael Ovitz, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs, around whom a carefully constructed hierarchy of managers assembled to ensure maximal success. There has always been something aspirational in this, a collective desire to invent a symbolic vessel for greatness none of us suspect we could have on our own. After decades of pursuing charismatic leaders to magically create growth in any industry—from app design to car manufacturing—a number of big corporations have turned toward non-hierarchical, leaderless structures and are actually outperforming many of their more structured competitors.