Frontline leadership model

In 1960, the influential book The Human Side of Enterprise challenged leaders to consider how they would structure and manage organizations if they assumed that humans are generally motivated to work. Indeed, McGregor argued, under the right conditions, workers will self-manage, seek responsibility and innovate. Six decades later, as workforces become more distributed, diverse and digitally connected, this question is as important as ever.  

Technology is making it easier for workers to engage with each other and with management. To harness the full human potential of their organizations, leaders from the executive suite to the frontlines will need to empower their teams to feel a sense of ownership, autonomy and purpose at work.  

Guided by a clear set of expectations and corporate purpose, workers on the operational frontlines – including those working directly with customers – can participate more directly in management decisions and solve many problems quickly and locally. Research has also shown that empowering workers and decentralizing decision-making can significantly increase employee motivation and satisfaction, leading to higher productivity, more innovation and lower turnover.  

Digital platforms are giving companies new ways of engaging workers – especially those who may be hard to reach due to remote working or their contractual relationship. Earwig is a service used by the UK construction industry to collect anonymous feedback from contractors in order to improve working conditions. Similarly, social media is providing workers with new ways to have a voice.  

Some companies have introduced specific processes to empower workers in everyday decision-making (e.g. the Skimm’s ‘Failure of the Week’ reward or Ritz Carlton’s $2,000 rule to solve customer problems), while others are taking more radical approaches to distributing power throughout the organization, such as manufacturer W. L. Gore & Associates’ lattice organization, shoe retailer Zappos’ Holacracy governance structure or Timpson's upside down management model, which trusts frontline employees to serve customers the way they know best.  

The next generation of leadership programs focus on building trusted relationships, exploring collective leadership and creating systemic impact, while simultaneously establishing networks of purpose-driven leaders. Examples include Aspen Institute’s Purpose College, Xynteo’s Leadership Vanguard program and the Small Giants' Leadership Academy. 

In your own organization: 

• Trial decentralized management approaches and collect feedback to explore what works best for your business. 

• Incentivize collaborative work and cross-functional innovation on priority questions. 

• Identify, resource and develop cross-functional networks to accelerate collaboration and innovation, and ensure teams have access to the necessary digital tools and time for such collaboration. 

• Find, highlight and share 'bright spots' where frontline leaders coach and empower their teams and achieve better business results. 

• Provide emerging leaders with experiential, values- and purpose-driven development programs and networks to help them explore shared and servant leadership.  

• Provide opportunities for emergent action (e.g. crowd-sourced resourcing for employee-proposed projects). 

With others: 

• Work across industries to promote leadership skills and tools (e.g., around radical listening, open two-way communication, incisive questioning and worker-executive feedback loops) and develop performance metrics that better evaluate leaders’ ability to create inclusive work environments built on trust, transparency and worker autonomy. 

• Work with leadership institutions to design training programs that build worker capabilities as decision-makers and collaborative intrapreneurs. 

• Share success and failures across industry peers from experimentation with decentralized organizational models.