Hierarchical Structures Quotes

An army of lions commanded by a deer will never be an army of lions.

Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations.

I'm interested in institutions, particularly in the way institutions close ranks. They have hierarchies and their own ethics.

There are many positive values that come with a Muslim upbringing. But when religion becomes about rules and hierarchies, when it starts to feel like a prison, I'm not interested.

People.. especially people in positions of power.. have invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get to where they are. They really don't want to hear that we're on the wrong path, that we've got to shift gears and start thinking differently.

Whenever people can access deities directly without the intervention of a religious hierarchy, they don't need to have hierarchy so much.

People are too keen to follow standard preconceptions of how organisations should work. All too often, we feel that we are unable to make changes and so hope that someone, somewhere in your organisation knows what we are doing and what the overall aim is.

It scares the Church hierarchy. Church leadership never recoiled in horror from pedophilia, yet it recoils in horror from outspoken nuns..

However sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, class, religion or all four.

Studies do show that in hierarchical structures, you do get more harassment. There's more power concentrated at the top, which means there's more abuse of power concentrated at the top. And every TV show is very much a hierarchy.

I don't like having hierarchical structures. So, everybody knows that I'm the boss but, from that, I don't like people to walk on eggshells. I like people to be friendly and to feel loved. I think that kind of fits into creativity stronger. If people are scared, they are afraid to come up with ideas.

The system of patriarchy is a historic construct; it has a beginning; it will have an end. Its time seems to have nearly run its course—it no longer serves the needs of men or women and in its inextricable linkage to militarism, hierarchy, and racism it threatens the very existence of life on earth. What will come after, what kind of structure will be the foundation for alternate forms of social organization we cannot yet know. We are living in an age of unprecedented transformation. We are in the process of becoming.

One can build the Empire State Building, discipline the Prussian army, make a state hierarchy mightier than God, yet fail to overcome the unaccountable superiority of certain human beings.

When executives lead as teachers, stewards, and designers, they fill roles that are much more subtle and long-term than those of power-wielding hierarchical leaders.

With the never-ending stream of new social technologies, apps and platforms rolling out every day, its easy to get lost in the minutiae of social media. Yet for there to be effective change, especially within large, top-down, hierarchical institutions, a company must have an over-arching understanding of the new role it has to play.

Top-down approaches do not work. The bottleneck is at the top of the bottle.

In most hierarchies, supercompetence is more objectionable than incompetence.

The bureaucratic culture that we [Afghanistan] have inherited is an obstacle. Hierarchies may be extremely efficient for dealing with certain events, but they are not quick in responding to global, flexible networks.