Hierarchy and Justice

In today’s organizational climate, where leaders are being held accountable for shifting their organization from a white supremacist culture to a more justice-oriented one, critiques of hierarchy are a key leadership challenge. I often hear leaders express frustration at not knowing how to respond to these staff critiques of an organization’s system, and staff are often eager to lead even if they don’t fully understand the system. However, this does not need to be the paradox it appears to be. Justice-oriented hierarchies are not completely unknown. Organizations that use an organizing approach are often designed for leadership development, often with a membership model.

However, in my 30 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, I have never worked at an organization that exhibited a functional hierarchy. The observable hierarchy was often a racial one, with white people towards the higher end of the hierarchy as leaders, and staff of color towards the bottom as frontline staff—if there were any staff of color at all. Often, the lower-level staff does not understand how the whole organization works, doesn’t trust that it works at the higher levels, and is stressed by the need to work around dysfunctions. Sometimes, the higher-level staff does not understand or see the whole organization either and is not able to offer a value for their benefits in the system. And, unfortunately, often the highest-level staff is not capable of constructing complex systems that support staff in seeing the whole system and their role in it, or even views such work as their responsibility.

The ability to construct fair and transparent complex systems is a critical leadership skill, no matter what its form.