There are different military philisophies, not all are top->down strict hierarchies. E.g. in the Prussian army of old, missions were communicated through objectives (I want to achieve X, your part is to do Y, while these other guys will do Z), and execution is up to to the local officers who actually see the things as they are locally and have all the knowledge about what they need to do, how it fits in the wider plans, and are best placed to decide how to do it. Furthermore, if an office or NCO disagreed with their direct commander's orders, they could go above their head to their commander's commander to protest. Add in the general staff system where staff officers had to service in command as well as part of their training, and could counteract commander's orders, it made for a very robust and flexible system capable of adapting to evolving situations and where officers didn't hesitate to argue with their superiors, go above their heads, and even disobey orders if they really thought it made sense.
Also, special forces (especially the SAS) work this way.
As ex-(regular) forces i understand the value of hierarchy, but getting the buy-in comes with unlimited trust in the leader (it happens) and/ or asking for opinions, and allowing decisions to be challenged, even over one's head.
'Get the result', is the request. How it is achieved is often secondary.
What happened to the relationship if one went above an officer’s head? Would they be on their direct superior’s “hurt this person as much as possible from now on” list?
Not necessarily, because the direct superior knows that their direct superior is aware of the situation, and the subordinate can always escalate if they're being unfairly targeted. But there were definitely grudges formed that way.
which is ironic, because a large part of current/western military leadership is "coming up with the plan together"- because it builds buy-in from the lower ranks.
I think it were the ancient Romans that created the distributed command for armies, where every decision is taken at the lowest hierarchical level possible.
It became somewhat out of fashion at the Modern age, but AFAIK no army operates purely on "your job is to respect hierarchy decisions".
If only it were that benign. Management has its roots in slavery.
A significant part of why early company-owners in the US preferred slaves is not because their labour was free - they were expensive assets, particularly skilled ones - but because free workers were less compliant to hierarchical control. They could walk off the job, they expected their opinions to be listened to, and you couldn't whip them into compliance. There's basically a straight line from plantations through Gantt then Taylor and his Scientific Management to McKinsey's Budgetary Control.
You're both right. There's always some mixing of the two.
Culturally northern corporations tend towards the West Point Peter Drucker management by objectives schools of thought.
Whereas the culturally southern plantation class is as you describe. Walmart is always my go to example.
This also roughly tracks geographically with strength of Labor. To no one's suprise, the neoliberal (confederate) generations long assault on Labor means the southern style has been waxing. Hopefully, with the youngs' (Gen Y & Z) new found enthuasism for Labor -- in the form of life, liberty, and pursuit of justice -- the slave owners grip on our society will begin to wane.
If you actually read the book Extreme Ownership, you'd realize how wrong your comment is. It advocates decentralization and ownership from the bottom up.
