Every flat org I’ve encountered has invisible mountains in the form of paychecks twice as heavy for some as for others. But that’s not what truly bothers me.
What truly bothers me is that senior leaders frequently demand from their teams standards they themselves don’t consistently uphold. They criticize others for not communicating proactively while comfortably hiding in their own information bubbles.
This is the authority trap. I’ve seen it almost everywhere and it’s deeply toxic. It breeds resentment, fractures trust, and slowly poisons team cohesion.
The solution is simple: leaders must visibly practice the behaviours they demand from everyone else. You can’t just point to transparency and accountability as occasional virtues when something isn’t going your way. They must be daily habits.
Anything less isn’t leadership.
It’s hypocrisy.