Should a company be a democracy? Neither a vote nor a single way of thinking: what citizens and managers have in common.
It all started with a conversation of no importance. The kind you have at the end of the day, about everything and nothing. And then, little by little, the question shifted. As so often, the real questions come in through the side door. We were talking about politics. We ended up talking about freedom.
The citizen and the duty to think
A political party, by nature, tries to win people over. To convince as many as possible to rally behind its banner. Nothing scandalous about that: it is its reason for being. The real question is not on its side, it is on ours. How, as citizens, do we form an opinion that is truly our own, rather than the ready-made bundle of ideas handed to us, to be taken as a whole?
Because that is where everything is decided. The trap is not being convinced: it is swallowing the whole package out of loyalty. Agreeing on the economy, and therefore feeling obliged to follow on everything else. The free citizen, on the other hand, separates the issues. He can side with one camp on one subject and with the other on the next, without it bothering him. He goes back to the sources before forming a view. He looks for his opponent’s best argument, not the weakest: because only if his opinion survives the most intelligent version of the disagreement is it truly his. And he accepts the discomfort of doubt, that grey zone where there is no reassuring label to wave.
All of this takes effort. That is precisely the point. Independence never comes the easy way. What comes easily is what has been prepared for us, chewed over, served ready to eat. When an opinion feels comfortable, be wary: it is often because someone else did the thinking for us.
And in business, then?
It was while putting this into words that the real question came to me. Because this duty of independence does not stop at the office door. An employee facing their company is in the same position as a citizen facing political parties: they can commit with full awareness, or follow out of conformity. Swallow the house culture, the processes, the “we’ve always done it this way”, or understand the why and keep the ability to say, when needed: “here, I disagree, and this is why.”
And since a company resembles a city so much, let us push the question all the way: should a company be a democracy?
The temptation to say yes is strong. But it would be a mistake. A company where everything was put to a vote would be condemned to paralysis: months of deliberation, no one accountable when things fail, slowness punished by the market. Someone has to decide and take responsibility. That is the opposite of a vote.
Should we then swing to the opposite, pure authority, the boss nobody questions? No more so. A company where the boss’s word is never questioned, a kind of autocracy where thinking becomes suspect, drives into the wall in silence. Nobody dares to say “what if we’re wrong?”, and the wall arrives. It is exactly the freedom we defended at the start, trampled on the other side of the badge.
Neither democracy, then, nor autocracy. The answer lies elsewhere.
Select, train, let them work — and still keep control
Before naming that answer, we need to say how, in practice, a company is run. And it all starts from a principle I place above all others: a company runs well first and foremost because it recruits well. You never make up for a casting error with surveillance. No training, no control repairs a bad initial choice.
From this follows a simple grammar, in four steps.
Select the right people. It is the weightiest decision, and it is made before the person has even started. Everything else depends on it. What you select is not a finished skill set: it is an attitude. Drive, integrity, the curiosity to learn.
Train them. This is where the manager makes room for the trainer. Skills can be learned; attitude, far more rarely. Training someone with the right mindset means revealing a potential they sometimes did not suspect in themselves. The manager chooses the attitude, the trainer reveals the potential.
Let them work, but according to each person’s autonomy. You do not loosen the reins in the same way for a beginner and for someone who has proven themselves. Autonomy is graduated: it is granted in proportion to what each person demonstrates. And it requires the manager to master their own ego, and not take back with one hand what they gave with the other.
And still keep control. Not spying: controlling. Keeping control mechanisms that are occasional, legitimate, expected. Because here is the paradox experience has taught me: trust does not prevent control, and better still, control strengthens trust. Employees know their work is followed, so they know they are taken seriously and that someone will be there if they stumble. The manager, because they check, can loosen the reins with peace of mind. Without control, trust is only blind hope. With it, it rests on solid ground.
Each step makes the next one possible. You select well so that training pays off. You train so that you can let go without risk. You let go so that people give their best. And you keep a light hand on things, to remain accountable.
A meritocracy that listens
Here we are. If a company is neither a democracy nor an autocracy, what is it when it is well run? A meritocracy. The power to decide is earned through competence, results and the responsibility you agree to carry, not through seniority, favouritism or submission. Each person receives autonomy in proportion to what they demonstrate.
But a meritocracy on its own can become hard, arrogant, a cult of the top performer that crushes those still learning. What saves it is keeping what democracy had that was precious: not the vote, but the voice. The right to speak belongs to everyone; the power to decide belongs to those who have the competence and answer for the outcome. Democracy in the mind, authority in the decision.
And the loop closes where it began. The aim of this whole process, selecting, training, letting people work, controlling, is not to produce docile executors. It is to produce free people, who no longer need anyone to think for them. The best manager does not just make themselves unnecessary day to day: they prepare those who will replace them. A company that works this way never runs short of successors. It keeps revealing them.
The citizen, the employee, the leader: none escapes the duty to think for themselves. And that never comes the easy way.