Exiting rebellion’s vicious circle

Abstract

What are companies’ strengths and weaknesses in dealing with rebellion? As the twenty-first century gets under way, self-proclaimed performance-based management possesses three traits: arrogant claims to leadership; a refusal to allow open discussion allied to the professed infallibility of an elite with broad managerial impunity; and disdain for those lower down the scale. This is all the more surprising as it is generally thought that the page had long since been turned on the era of bureaucracy. Companies that are managed from a power base — those displaying these three traits — are fertile ground for rebellion.