Auttocracy v democracy
I believe there is a lot of misplaced thinking going on
This omes back to the difference between leadership and management as discussed in a post the other day
Leadership is about pathfinding, encouraging. demanding, anything that will enable you to meet the visionary goal that the leader sees will enable the company to reach a new plateau, or a new position in the future. Management is about dealing with the day to day minutae, meeting corporate planning objectives, dealing with leave, sick employees, non performance, purchase orders, accounting for opex and capex
both of these are essential to the performance of an organisation. a good comparison woud be the difference between Sol Tujillo and Ziggy Switkowski, both who have been CEO's of Telstra in australia
Sol is a visionary type with a clearer vision of what the future demands, and demands of Telstra that it delivers come what may, while ziggy is more of a manager type, who will take a vision, put the wall behind it and make it perform. Both are types that are required for different deliverables
Getting back to autocratic leadersip v management and democratic leadership and management, both have different functions. When there is an emergency, and you need to solve a problem now, there is no time to consult, to prove your point of view to countless others. you need to demand and get deliverys without arguement. Armed forces work very clearly in this viewpoint, whereby officers order, and soldiers do.
I note that one of the phenomenoms that seems to be occuring now is where companies talk about staff engagement, on the basis that engagement is a functin of the success of an organisation. It is useful when you are trying to change the culture of an organisation to that morse suited to the needs of the future. this does require a deal of democratisation (Which some will see as socialism). but it does depend on what you wish to achieve
