Exploring dream teams without bosses

Stephen Courtright is helping the terms “self-leadership” and “boss-less offices” become household phrases. The assistant professor of management joined a panel on Huffington Post (HuffPost Live) to discuss whether jobs without the traditional hierarchy can survive.

“As a researcher/teacher/consultant, when someone wants to switch to a boss-less office, I tell them, “This doesn’t mean that there is no leadership. The leadership is just transferred to the employees,'” Courtright explains on the HuffPost Live episode. He says the role of the leader shifts “from a command and control to more of a provision of resources and support.”

Also on the panel were three employees of Menlo, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company where teams of employees make the major management decisions; Matt Shaer, a writer who contributes to New York Magazine; and Nicole Williams, an author and LinkedIn’s career expert.

Courtright’s primary areas of expertise are team and leadership effectiveness. His research has garnered awards from the Academy of Management, Society for Human Resource Management and the Network of Leadership Scholars. He also was quoted in a story in New York Magazine that explores this trend of workplaces where the employees vote on who gets promotions and how much people should be paid.

About Mays Business School

Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School educates more than 5,000 undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing and supply chain management. Mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools in the country for its undergraduate and MBA programs, and for faculty research. The mission of Mays Business School is creating knowledge and developing ethical leaders for a global society.