“Judy, I have to leave,” called out my boss. It was years before New Work. I followed him down the hallway to the elevator. Notepad and pen in hand like a medieval scribe, I was jotting down his action points. “You need to call X and finalize the offer,” he said as the elevator made its way up. “But I can’t negotiate this,” I replied gingerly. “You can cause damage up to …” and here he named quite a sum as he stepped into the elevator. “You can do this,” he called as the elevator doors were closing. I ended up negotiating the offer. It all turned out well.
This boss followed a leadership style that is known as primus inter pares, the “first among equals.” In ancient Rome, this term denoted a member of a group who formally had the same rights as everyone else. Of course, in reality, they had a special position of honor or higher standing and the considerable influence that came with the position. But within the fabric of the group, they functioned like they did not. Could primus inter pares be the secret sauce for happy employees?
Why Is the Way We Work Breaking?
Again, to be very clear: our boss was our boss in every way. He was the founder of his company and our managing director. We respected him as you would respect your boss. Still, what made him stand out in his role was the way he treated his team and his clients. He was friendly, creative and curious. He made sure to hear and discuss everyone’s ideas. Sometimes we had heated discussions around projects, but these sessions were almost always part of our success. He had compassion for his employees’ personal plights. In this setting, we did not feel like traditional employees in a hierarchy. We felt trusted.
Sadly, the spirit is much different in many work environments. Work environments seem to be becoming increasingly unforgiving of humans and their needs. A majority of employees in Austria report they are not thriving or feeling empowered. One of the main findings of a survey recently conducted in Austria was that a staggering 83 (!) percent of Austrian employees go to work even when they are mentally exhausted or burned out instead of calling in sick.
The Grind Is Real
67 percent of those surveyed said that they feel stressed often or very often. According to their own assessment, 40 percent have seen their stress levels rise just over the past one to two years. Women reported being under greater stress than men. 73 percent of women and 61 percent of men indicated that they are stressed often or even very often at work.
It is clear that such deep exhaustion is going to influence how people behave in the workplace. Exhausted employees are more likely to forget things; they think ahead less than they should. They may withdraw or simply resort to doing what they are told instead of coming up with new ideas. This starts a spiral of doom. The managers these employees report to are under the same pressure or are put under even more pressure from their own managers. Reacting with impatience or micromanagement to employees falling short of expectations is the obvious result.
Bringing It to the Table
At first glance, it looks like employee laziness on one side and bad leadership on the other. But the fact is that both parties are likely coping with too much. The pressure piling up on employees comes “from the top” because there is not much time to find out what someone is coping with. Silence and doubt can easily make two reasonable adults distrust and frustrate each other. Yet there are also cultural and societal reasons: around the globe, workplace structures as we know them are no longer working. Everyone is scared of making the first move towards fundamental transformation for fear of “punishment.”
Unlike our ancestors, most of us are raising our children today to ensure they become strong individuals who voice their minds. We hope our children can name their feelings once they reach nursery age. Long gone are the days when we expected students to fit the mold. By the time they are in elementary school, our children know we value their uniqueness. And everyone knows that expressing superiority by bullying is wrong. By the time they are adults, it is society’s expectation that adult employees now do fit the mold and know how to work in a hierarchy, no matter their personality.
Feeling Highly Valued
We raise our children to feel highly valued. Why? Because according to our human understanding of democracy in the 21st century, there should be no plausible reason to show one person more respect or consideration than another simply because that person has been designated to be in a higher position by organizational structures or policies. So why do the old beliefs prevail in the office?
Joost Minnaar and Pim de Morree took frustration around hierarchies seriously. In 2016, they left their corporate jobs and started their own project, Corporate Rebels. They embarked on a mission to look for companies that had found new ways to organize work. Their message leaves no room for doubt: “Work is broken. We go inside the organizations that fixed it.” Joost and Pim went on a mission to find alternatives.
Partnership instead of Domination
They have since researched more than 200 self-managed organizations around the world and are still going strong. During their quest, they observed smaller teams, fewer layers of management, decisions made closer to the actual processes and leaders who support people in every way they need.
As concepts of authority increasingly erode and the social fabric loosens, we are once again facing patriarchal ideas and movements. The concept of hierarchical thinking is back on the rise in certain nations and realms that are domination-oriented and in the throes of conservative backlash. This trend (because I don’t want to give the movement the weight it does not deserve) has set out to thwart the efforts of people to express their individuality in their careers. Its supporters don’t want too many workers to become personal brands or to venture out on their own. (But it’s okay if their wives do; they could even get a bonus.)
Our present system of institutional hierarchy is firmly in place. Why? Because those who benefit from traditional structures have a marked interest in the many working for the benefit of the few rather than supporting new work models that benefit the many. Why is it so difficult to let go of the domination model at work?
Still Working Like a Factory?
The history of institutional hierarchy dates back to ancient states, armies and religious institutions. It worked by using ranks to organize large groups of people. During the Industrial Revolution, founders moved work from homes, farmsteads and small workshops into large production sites, divided tasks and made sure managers oversaw processes. Factories and hierarchical structures turned out to be a good match. The growing ventures added more departments, formal rules and levels of authority.
Max Weber described bureaucracy as a system based on specialized roles, formal rules and a clear chain of command. Staff and processes in organizations embedded in such frameworks were easier to manage. Also – lo and behold – decisions were now less dependent on birth, personal favors or a manager’s mood.
Bureaucracy may have “worked” to an extent for 19th-century factories built around standardized and repetitive tasks. However, the majority of large companies still employ the same structures for people whose work requires judgment, ideas and quick decisions. Yes, a clearly defined hierarchy can still prove useful during emergencies or when safety depends on one chain of command. But do you know many other instances? We are clamoring for dynamics, innovation and change but hierarchies fear them like the plague.
Turning New Work into More Work
Enter New Work. The social philosopher Frithjof Bergmann coined the term in the 1980s. The concept only gained ground once digitalization and globalization sped up. New Work describes a way of working that allows people to do work they find meaningful, with more freedom than in traditional structures.
The movement has been paving the way for flexible working hours, more independence, flatter hierarchies and a better fit between work and private life. You have a doctor’s appointment during work hours? No problem. You want to finish work at 3 because you are done with your tasks for the day? Uh, that could be a problem… there is always more work to be done and you should not finish before 5:30. You could go to the gym in secret and hope that your co-worker does not see you there and rat on you. You should at least be seen on location by someone in the office at 5:30.
New Work came into its own during the COVID-19 pandemic, when remote work became necessary and allowed for greater location independence. Contrary to popular belief, remote work may have even contributed to increases in productivity. Also, employees who are able to work remotely, among other things, enjoy that they don’t need to commute, that they can maybe take a walk during their lunch break and that they can dress comfortably at their desk, that they can pursue more volunteer work and more. Remote work is a godsend if you have a lot on your plate: as a caregiver or parent, or as a neurodivergent person who struggles with open-space layouts…
However, as soon as there was no longer a “need” to “allow” employees to work remotely and flexibly, companies mandated “back to the office” for employees. Yes, like “back to school” is mandated for children after summer break. There is no “need” to “allow” children to choose what they want to learn. Also, it is easier to “supervise” employees at the office when they are all sitting in plain view like in a classroom.
Putting Egos Aside
A study by Marissa S. Shandell, Courtney E. Elliott and Adam M. Grant found that leaders with stronger narcissistic traits are more likely to resist remote work. Remote work threatens the power and status such leaders draw from their role (the polar opposite of leading as primus inter pares). The research included an analysis of 259 Fortune 500 CEOs, a survey of 359 leaders and an experiment with 546 leaders. Across all three parts, narcissistic traits predicted resistance to remote work.
The researchers put it in plain, shocking words: “Narcissistic leaders resist remote work because it interferes with their motivations for power and status.” Mind you, this is not to say that every leader has narcissistic traits, but it does suggest that ego-driven leadership may be a vital factor in maintaining hierarchies.
Taking the Classroom Out of Work
Is it just hierarchies that we need to break down to thrive at work? Probably not. We also need to rethink and to redesign other parameters. Enter AI. Initially, hopeful predictions envisioned AI making work old and new more efficient. It was also expected to enable people to spend less time on rote tasks. In reality, the world now seems to be in a state of anxious anticipation instead. No one really knows exactly what lies ahead, which jobs will be lost and how many, how wages and salaries are going to be paid, what work is going to mean a few years down the road. Elon Musk has even predicted that we won’t be needing any money in ten years because AI will render human labor obsolete.
For the time being, in the USA, federal labor law does not stipulate a maximum number of hours companies can require their employees to work. Hence, tech workers have reported that in the throes of the AI race, they have been required to work nights, weekends and to be “on call” outside working hours. Some jobs require employees to train AI using their own work, potentially enabling AI to replace some or all of their roles. Some of them may be replaced within the next ten years.
In the meantime, in Europe, outside of the USA and China, governments and industry associations are trying to figure out how they can “catch up” in the AI race. It would serve Europe better to develop new concepts and strategies of its own instead, something the continent has been notoriously bad at in the past. Most Europeans don’t see the full scope of living in a continent that is much better positioned in terms of quality of life, equity and high standards than any other place in the world. Europe has always been ahead in terms of creating human work structures for the people. Changing economic times offer the chance to become a beacon for creating and implementing the most innovative work structures in the world.
Five to Nine instead of Nine to Five
- These are the questions that need answering: How do we plan on making an income five years down the road? AI will likely displace hundreds of thousands of jobs. Developments in Europe will depend on the country, with Germany having the highest number of jobs at risk of displacement. Are we just going to watch what happens instead of making proactive plans for a new economic system?
- If AI does not turn out to be efficient enough to take on all our work, what is an alternative to our hierarchical systems? We could increase the number of shared jobs. One person can work early-bird shifts and the other afternoons, depending on their preference. We could work in consensus-based teams to go beyond primus inter pares.
- European companies implementing AI in their processes need to deal with data sovereignty. Setting up the systems is a perfect opportunity to develop extensive employee participation models from the get-go. Such schemes will finally allow European employees to substantially share in productivity gains. It could certainly help employee engagement to recover.
- In Austria, we need to provide small- and medium-sized companies with information and opportunities to access growth capital. It could be part of an initiative to bring Europe’s traditionally conservative investment environment into 2026 and beyond. Look at Sweden for how it can be done.
Daring to Change the Old
These changes offer the best opportunity to fundamentally reform how organizations operate. This means calling on the mavericks within companies, whose ideas drive innovation, and enabling them to innovate. It means recognizing all the employees as the spine of every company, those who carry the true load. This means giving enough budget to teams that want to push ahead instead of making decisions behind closed doors. It means fairly compensating people for their contributions, with or without AI, and proactively maintaining an open dialogue. It is the people who make significant contributions to a company’s future viability, especially in the eye of AI.
Now is also the time to create transnational drives and initiatives for worker reskilling. Europe is traditionally averse to speed and pivoting. This is a luxury problem. Europe can be surprisingly fast when it needs to be. Impending economic changes call for a massive reset strategy by governments. We need to review public spending and what is really important. Let’s explore those areas in which Europe has traditionally been ahead of other economies, such as environmental and climate protection. This is where we can shine.
Maybe the concept of leadership will change entirely during the next decades. We could see one person leading during a crisis. Another person leads when innovation and new ideas are needed. A third comes in when structures have to be implemented. The fourth person implements changes, and so on. Let’s create something great during these seismic shifts in the workplace. Let’s take Europe to the next level.
📸 AI-generated reinterpretation of the Roman concept of primus inter pares, 2026, inspired by Augustus’ Res Gestae Divi Augusti, section 34: “I took precedence of all in rank, but of power I possessed no more than those who were my colleagues…” (Livius Ancient History), article copy created with support by OpenAI.