From Hierarchy to Harmony: How U.S. Businesses Can Align Without Command-and-Control

The Great Flattening and the Reconfiguration of Authority

Across the United States, workplace structures are undergoing a visible shift that many researchers now call the Great Flattening. This term describes a trend in which traditional pyramids of authority—with multiple layers of managers overseeing relatively small teams—are giving way to broader spans of control and leaner organizational models. A 2025 analysis by payroll and HR platform Gusto observed that the average number of direct reports for managers in U.S. small businesses nearly doubled between 2020 and 2025, moving from just over three to almost six. While such data does not capture the full complexity of organizational life, it signals a broader rebalancing: fewer managers supervising larger groups, often supported by digital platforms and artificial intelligence.

At the same time, generational dynamics are influencing attitudes toward authority. A Business Insider report drawing on Development Dimensions International (DDI) data noted that members of Generation Z are significantly more likely than previous cohorts to avoid managerial promotions when these roles appear to compromise well-being or work–life balance. This reluctance does not necessarily imply a rejection of responsibility, but it reflects a redefinition of leadership as something to be integrated with personal autonomy rather than as a badge of hierarchical control. In this sense, Gen Z voices resonate with a longer historical current in organizational studies: from Douglas McGregor’s Theory Y in the 1960s, which emphasized intrinsic motivation and trust, to contemporary debates on psychological safety and collaborative design.

Yet flattening structures and generational preferences alone do not explain the evolving landscape of management. What is emerging is a paradox. On one side, flatter organizations appear to promise greater agility, faster information flows, and a culture of shared ownership. On the other, the very absence of intermediate managers raises concerns about coordination, strategic coherence, and the maintenance of a common culture. The Gallup Q12 meta-analysis has long associated high engagement with increased profitability and lower absenteeism, but engagement is not an automatic outcome of reducing hierarchy. Instead, it depends on whether dialogue, recognition, and trust are effectively cultivated across dispersed teams.

Organizational theorists remind us that hierarchy is not simply a structure of power; it is also a mechanism of sense-making. Classic work in contingency theory (Burns and Stalker, 1961) showed that mechanistic hierarchies thrive in stable environments, whereas more organic, participative forms are advantageous in uncertain contexts. Today’s conditions—technological disruption, global competition, and shifting employee expectations—suggest that a pure return to command-and-control is unlikely. However, eliminating authority altogether is equally problematic, as coordination requires some form of anchoring. What appears instead is a reconfiguration of authority: less about issuing orders, more about providing orientation, consistency, and alignment with shared goals.

This broader perspective helps explain why organizations experimenting with flattened structures often face a transitional dip in alignment. McKinsey research in 2025 emphasized that nearly one-third of executives reported a persistent gap between strategic intent and execution, particularly in firms that had embraced more collaborative decision-making without simultaneously building mechanisms to ensure coherence. Management, therefore, becomes not the suppression of autonomy but the art of channeling it toward a collective mission.

To understand how this plays out in practice, it is useful to examine organizations that have become emblematic of two complementary approaches. Patagonia, the outdoor apparel company, has built its culture on shared values and employee stewardship, showing how strong cultural anchors can replace rigid chains of command. Salesforce, by contrast, operates with large, diverse teams but maintains alignment through a formalized framework—its V2MOM system—that ties individual projects to overarching strategic priorities. Together, these cases illustrate the dual challenge of modern management: sustaining openness and autonomy while preserving coherence and purpose.

Patagonia and the Culture of Shared Stewardship

Mission as a Stable Anchor

Patagonia’s authority structure is explicitly tied to its public mission—“We’re in business to save our home planet.” This is not only a slogan: since September 2022, the company’s ownership has been structured so that profits not reinvested are directed to environmental causes via the Holdfast Collective, while the Patagonia Purpose Trust safeguards mission alignment. This governance design makes the mission a durable point of reference for decisions, beyond any single leader’s preferences. 

Democratic and Participative Practices, in Practice

Rather than relying solely on hierarchical directives, Patagonia publicly describes programs that give employees agency in environmental work. The Environmental Internship Program, for example, allows staff to work for approved environmental organizations—up to two months—while retaining pay and benefits. Career materials reiterate this program and related learning opportunities. These mechanisms do not prove that every decision is made democratically, but they illustrate formal avenues through which employees can participate in the mission beyond their job descriptions. Patagonia+1

Directive Clarity Without Authoritarian Control

Patagonia’s model does not dispense with clarity or non-negotiables. The company’s purpose statement and ownership set boundaries that act, in effect, as “directive” guardrails: product and operational choices are expected to cohere with the environmental purpose. Leadership thus functions as custodian of that purpose more than as an issuer of narrow, task-level commands. This is a qualitative interpretation grounded in the organization’s published purpose and governance choices.

Adherence Through Internalization, Not Mere Obedience

Adherence in flatter systems is not automatic. Patagonia’s example suggests that when a mission is embedded in governance and programs, employees can align by internalizing shared aims rather than by complying only with managerial orders. That said, even participative cultures require consistent signals and some decision rights to prevent drift—a point consistent with mainstream organizational theory. The evidence cited here supports the existence of mission-anchored governance and participative programs; the claim that these features suffice for universal alignment is not made.

What Other Organizations Can—and Cannot—Infer

For leaders considering less hierarchical designs, Patagonia primarily shows how a clear mission, tied to ownership and employee programs, can substitute for some layers of control. It does not guarantee performance, nor does it eliminate the need for coordination mechanisms in complex environments. The transferability depends on sector dynamics, regulatory constraints, and the strength of an organization’s own “anchor” (purpose, strategy, or both). The Patagonia case is thus best read as a documented governance choice plus a set of employee programs, with cautious inferences about culture.

Salesforce and the Discipline of Alignment

From Purpose to Process: What V2MOM Is

Salesforce publicly describes V2MOM as a lightweight, repeatable framework for strategic alignment. The acronym stands for Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures. Company materials present it as a way to articulate direction and guardrails while making trade-offs visible. Unlike generic goal systems, V2MOM is framed as a narrative charter that ties what teams do to why they do it, and how progress will be assessed.

Cascading Alignment Without Command-and-Control

Trailhead, Salesforce’s learning platform, explains that alignment emerges as each employee writes an individual V2MOM after reviewing the company and manager versions, creating a cascade from enterprise priorities down to team and personal charters. The mechanism is procedural rather than authoritarian: leaders provide direction by clarifying the Vision and Values; teams propose Methods; Obstacles and Measures force an explicit conversation about constraints and evidence. In this design, authority orients rather than dictates.

Directive Clarity with Democratic Input

Viewed through classic leadership lenses, V2MOM blends directive and democratic elements. The enterprise-level Vision and Values function as non-negotiable anchors—akin to directive clarity—while Methods and Obstacles invite bottom-up intelligence that resembles democratic or participative leadership. The intent, as described in Salesforce’s own materials, is to surface misalignment early and make choices transparent, not to centralize every decision in a managerial layer. This positions managers less as controllers of tasks and more as stewards of coherence.

Rhythm and Refresh: Keeping Alignment Live

Salesforce’s training content emphasizes that V2MOMs are reviewed and refreshed, rather than written once and forgotten. That cadence matters in flatter organizations, where priorities can shift and the risk of drift is higher. By institutionalizing a periodic check on Measures and Obstacles, the framework tries to convert “alignment” from a static document into an ongoing managerial practice. The principle is simple: when spans widen, you need a lightweight, recurring forum to reconnect local initiative to shared goals.

What Leaders Can—and Cannot—Infer

Public materials about V2MOM show how a formal alignment process can substitute for some of the coordinating work that middle layers used to perform. They do not, by themselves, prove causal effects on cycle time, duplication, or financial performance across contexts; those outcomes depend on execution quality, tooling, and culture. For organizations considering adoption, the transferable lesson is the clarity of the scaffold: set a small number of shared anchors, make trade-offs explicit, require every team to connect their work to those anchors, and review that connection on a regular cadence.

Conclusion: Two Anchors, Two Logics of Culture

The diptych of Salesforce and Patagonia highlights two distinct ways of sustaining coherence in flatter organizations. Salesforce embodies a commercial orientation where results remain the ultimate benchmark. Its V2MOM framework is not primarily about how culture should feel, but about ensuring that every initiative connects back to measurable objectives. The process itself is secondary to the discipline of alignment; what matters is that diverse teams, spread across functions and geographies, can be pulled into a common strategic direction.

Patagonia, by contrast, represents a mission-driven orientation in which culture itself becomes the organizing mechanism. Here, environmental stewardship is not an external metric but an internal compass. The mission permeates decisions, programs, and governance structures, reducing the need for heavy procedural frameworks. Employees adhere not only because of coordination systems but because they recognize themselves as stewards of a shared cause.

Both approaches show that in a flattened world, authority does not vanish; it is reconfigured. For Salesforce, authority is expressed through frameworks that translate vision into results. For Patagonia, authority is embedded in values that infuse everyday choices. The lesson for leaders is not to decide between one model and the other, but to ask: what is the anchor that will sustain coherence in our organization—commercial results, cultural mission, or some balance of the two?