I do think more democratic, less hierarchical systems can work well if they're implemented in the right way. I saw a shift from that, where it was functioning well, to something more hierarchical and everything play out as this blog post is criticizing. It became really clear very quickly how aims shifted from more institutional mission-statement-type goals to promotion criteria and personal power agendas.

There's a limit I guess, but sometimes having multiple people to report to can lead to checks and balances.

I once had a similar situation and seriously contemplated building an application to manage my status updates so I could enter the raw data once and have all N people who needed to be updated sent the right information in the right way at the right time....

This is a great idea!

I think someone already built it… and called it Jira.

At least for performance reviews it's so much easier. If your boss hates you for some reason, that sucks, but you can just move on. It's a lot simpler than trying to please a dozen different people simultaneously though.

I have a scrum master, a product owner, a tech lead, and a team manager. All four of those are management relationships, but only 1.5 are hierarchal (the manager and sort of the tech lead). The most effective and efficient relationships we have, IMO, are with the scrum master and product owner, who aren't above us in a hierarchy.

There's no inherent reason for management to be hierarchically superior. If you want productive relationships, you have to level the power dynamic more.

Seems like if your boss is a receptacle for status updates, the company is doing management wrong. Sure, it works less bad with one, but that doesn't mean it's good.