Leading with Soul: An Uncommon Journey of Spirit, Revised Third Edition

The Gift of Authorship

Authorship is rare in most organizations. Though it may sound like a caricature from a Dickens novel, the classic management approach is simple. Give people a job. Tell them how to do it. Look over their shoulder to make sure they’re doing it right. Reward or punish them depending on their performance. It’s frustrating for everyone. Workers feel overcontrolled, underinformed, and undervalued. Even when they know how to do the job better than their boss, they feel compelled to follow orders at the expense of performance. Disappointed superiors blame workers and tighten supervision. A constricting spiral undermines workers’ sense of connection, ownership, and pride.

Despite efforts across corporate America to increase participation ...