Different Management Styles
I've often said that Command and Control is a valid, useful, form of management. So is Consensus. Now the latter is a lot harder to achieve because you have to have very self-aware people in the organization. They have to be aware of their limitations, and know when it's best for the group for them to stop back, and to step up. Yet it is, without doubt, the most effective team.
But a lot can get done with Command and Control - as long as everyone does their part. The commanders have to assume responsibility for their commands, and they have to be available to make those decisions at any time - based on the needs of their subordinates to have issues resolved. After all, it's no good to have a great commander if he's never available to make the command decisions.
I've been thinking a lot about management lately, and I'd like to think I've made enough mistakes to know that I work pretty well in either form, but I think everyone works better in the consensus format - assuming they have the right teammates. After all - a good team doesn't have to be staffed will all-stars, it just has to be staffed with the right people, and then set the expectations accordingly.
What I have seen fail over and over is the organization that claims to be Consensus - but is, in fact, Command and Control. They want to appear that they trust the workers, that they have hired the right mix of people, but in the end, they really don't trust them because either they know the people aren't right (but are possibly hoping they will become the right people), or they just don't trust others.
This latter truth is really what I've seen more of than anything else - mistrust. A very smart guy - capable of being an amazing individual contributor gets promoted out of that spot, into a place where they are no longer outstanding. It's the Peter Principle all the time:
managers rise to the level of their incompetence
It's so true it almost makes me sad, reading the Wikipedia page. I can see in so many people that they have really risen out of the position where they were outstanding into a job that they really are very marginal at. They might have thought they could do it, or could learn to do it, or would get better at it, but in the end, their realization that they really are no good at their job is something that creates a great deal of friction for them - internally.
Unhappy people aren't necessarily the first to see it in themselves. They get irritable, cranky, intolerant, micromanaging - all things that the wouldn't normally want to be doing, but their current mental state is being heavily influenced by the fact that they are mad at themselves for taking this job over staying where they were and feeling a lot of job satisfaction out of doing something really well.
I don't think there's any real solution to this problem. The wikipedia page gives a few suggestions, but they are all virtually impossible to implement as human beings are involved, and the willingness to admit defeat is not something most people want to admit to. So we suffer through. Adults aren't going to change their beliefs and habits without a significant Life-Altering Event - and there's no way to predict those - nor would I want to inflict one on anyone. But that's what it'll take for these folks to re-asses the way they work.
Sadly, it's just considered normal.