The biggest barriers to strategic renewal are almost always top management's unexamined beliefs.
Gary HamelRead
The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralized authority. In most companies, power cascades downwards from the CEO. Not only are employees disenfranchised from most policy decisions, they lack even the power to rebel against egocentric and tyrannical supervisors.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Centralized authority can hinder employee engagement and empowerment.
In this quote, Gary Hamel critiques the negative impact of centralized authority on employee engagement in organizations. He suggests that when power is concentrated at the top, it disempowers employees, preventing them from participating in decision-making and standing up against poor management practices, ultimately leading to a disengaged workforce.
Themes
Employee EngagementCentralized AuthorityLeadershipEmpowermentWorkplace Culture
In practice
Example use cases
During a team meeting, to discuss the importance of empowering employees, one might say, 'As Gary Hamel pointed out, centralized authority can be a real damper on engagement.'
More from Gary Hamel
All quotes →To create an organization that's adaptable and innovative, people need the freedom to challenge precedent, to 'waste' time, to go outside of channels, to experiment, to take risks and to follow their passions.
Gary HamelRead
If customer ignorance is a profit centre for you, you're in trouble.
Gary HamelRead
It doesn't matter much where your company sits in its industry ecosystem, nor how vertically or horizontally integrated it is - what matters is its relative 'share of customer value' in the final product or solution, and its cost of producing that value.
Gary HamelRead
The single biggest reason companies fail is they overinvest in what is, as opposed to what might be.
Gary HamelRead
The only thing that can be safely predicted is that sometime soon your organization will be challenged to change in ways for which it has no precedent.
Gary HamelRead
Similar quotes
If you don't have the ability to see when to stand up and the conviction to do it, you'll never be an effective leader.
John C. MaxwellRead
All I can say is that with business and the interest of any party before me, I will consider and apply the law as it is written by Congress and informed by precedent.
Sonia SotomayorRead
Social-sector organizations have to be better managed than for-profit organizations... because they have no margin of error.
Frances HesselbeinRead
Leaders aren't born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that's the price we'll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.
Vince LombardiRead
I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.
Margaret ThatcherRead
Heaven has appointed me to rule all the nations, for hitherto there has been no order upon the steppes.
Genghis KhanRead