Why distributed leadership matters now more than ever
The future belongs to organizations where everyone leads—not just a few at the top.
And yet, many organizations are still clinging to outdated, top-down leadership models from the last century. Leadership was concentrated in the upper ranks, while everyone else was expected to follow orders, not drive change.
That approach just doesn’t work anymore.
Back when information was hard to come by and most jobs were repetitive, it made sense. But today, these models create bottlenecks, stall innovation, and leave people disengaged right when we need everyone on board.
Alongside colleagues like Deborah Ancona, Elaine Backman, and Gary Hamel, we’ve spent years researching a better approach: distributed leadership.
It’s not about chaos or consensus. It’s about designing organizations where initiative flows in every direction, where people at all levels are trusted to lead, and where everyone contributes to solving the real problems that matter.
And it works.
- At W.L. Gore, the company behind Gore-Tex, distributed leadership has been baked into the culture from day one. The company operates without traditional hierarchies. Leadership emerges through followership, not title. Associates choose their projects, make decisions close to the work, and fuel sustained innovation across industries.
- At GE Appliances, CEO Kevin Nolan turned a legacy brand into a thriving system of micro-enterprises—small, empowered teams that stay close to the customer and innovate without bureaucratic drag.
- At Best Buy, former CEO Hubert Joly pushed power to the frontlines. By trusting store managers and frontline teams to lead—and connecting their work to a greater purpose—he reinvigorated a company many had written off.
These companies aren’t just doing it differently—they’re performing better because of it.
In this blog series, we’ll explore the nuts and bolts of distributed leadership:
- How to balance autonomy with alignment, so teams can act independently without losing cohesion
- How to shift from command-and-control to empower-and-enable, creating environments where people thrive
- How to design systems that activate people’s intrinsic motivation—to grow, create, and contribute—while giving them a real stake in the results
Let’s be clear: distributed leadership isn’t just a “nice-to-have.” It’s a strategic imperative. Organizations that distribute leadership effectively are more adaptive, more innovative, and far more human.
If you’re ready to unlock the full leadership capacity of your people, not just your org chart—come learn with us.This is where the future is headed.
