A hierarchical organization of a company is an advantage when it comes to leading the company under a core mission and making sure that this mission is followed. Steve Jobs led his company in a very controlled way with high standards, yet was able to successfully initiate many new developments that led Apple into the new millennium (Isaacson, 2011). Such an approach works best for companies that take specific care of their core message and embrace a shared mission. However, at the same time, a hierarchical organization can also be very rigid and thus too slow to react to change. Therefore, a compromise may be possible. There could be a small leadership group that is responsible for establishing and enforcing the mission and strategic directives, and the rest of the company could be organized in small, autonomous units that each oversee multiple operations at the same time for a small geographic region. That way, there would be no real middle management standing between operations and top management. Operations would be exposed directly to the mission and strategy, and could then integrate that mission with actual consumer demand. This would create a nimble business organization that aligned along a common mission.
Question: Can a hierarchial organization still have transitional leadership?