Management and Leadership: at a crossroads
Why Current Models Are Showing Their Limits
As companies emerge—albeit unevenly—from years of turbulence—pandemic, inflation, supply chain disruptions, and digital transitions—a deeper challenge is taking shape: that of management.
Traditional categories—leader, manager, executive—seem increasingly ill-suited to today’s challenges. Behind the proliferation of discourse on “agility,” “well-being at work,” or “inspirational leadership,” a fundamental question is emerging: what if it’s the structures of power themselves, more than individuals, that need rethinking?
Leadership or Collective Coordination?
The 20th century produced a managerial imaginary centered on the figure of the leader: charismatic, visionary, a driver of transformation. This model remains prominent in professional literature, HR seminars, and MBA programs.
But in a world now marked by permanent uncertainty and systemic complexity, this paradigm is showing its limits.
Researchers like Henry Mintzberg and Frédéric Laloux advocate for a different approach: distributed leadership, where organizational performance depends less on one individual and more on the collective’s ability to self-organize, make decisions, and learn.
This implies a cultural shift—from management based on control to a logic of trust and subsidiarity.
Managerial Malaise: A systemic symptom
Studies keep pointing to the same issues: increased burnout among executives, silent resignations, and a crisis of meaning among middle managers.
They are expected to be strategists, coaches, team cohesion guarantors, and performance drivers—all at once. This role overload reflects less a lack of competence than a structural imbalance.
Management becomes a space of tension, where short-term economic objectives clash with human, ethical, and environmental expectations.
Rethinking Managerial Functions: an organizational urgency
Many organizations are trying to adapt their practices: holacracy, “teal” models, co-development, team coaching, collective intelligence… These attempts reveal one thing: the need to explore new configurations of power, authority, and decision-making.
But this is not just a technical adjustment. It’s deep work, involving cultural choices, political trade-offs, and often a change in posture from the leadership itself.
What Now?
The transformation of management will not come through a new miracle method or a proliferation of “soft skills” trainings. It requires a reflective, collective, and iterative effort on what it means today to “lead,” “coordinate,” and “mobilize.”
It’s time to ask the real questions:
- What constitutes legitimate power in an organization?
- What space is there for voice, disagreement, and initiative?
- How can responsibility be redefined without being diluted?
Want to go deeper?
Some institutions—research centers, practitioner collectives, training organizations—support this kind of reflection without imposing a specific model. For instance, Swissnova offers spaces for discussion and experimentation around new forms of management. Their approach is less prescriptive and more participative, favoring questions over ready-made answers.
This article is part of a series of reflections on the evolution of contemporary management. Its goal is not to promote a single model, but to open avenues for thought, based on the tensions observed in current practices.
