Leadership Quote by Dee Hock

Leadership, in Dee Hock's view, isn’t a higher rung on the ladder; it’s a job assignment with the power arrows reversed. The provocation sits in the phrase "mislabeled 'subordinates,'" which treats hierarchy itself as a semantic trick: we call people below us "subordinates" to make domination feel orderly, even virtuous. Hock’s intent is less motivational-poster friendly than corrective. He’s naming a category error that shows up everywhere from corporate org charts to politics: mistaking authority for purpose.

The subtext is blunt: if your first instinct is to be obeyed, you’re not leading, you’re hoarding control. The line "you work for" reframes the manager as infrastructure. Your role is to clear obstacles, provide clarity, secure resources, absorb risk, and translate strategy into conditions where others can do real work. It’s the philosophy of servant leadership stripped of its churchy halo and given teeth by a moral ultimatum.

Calling the alternative "tyranny" is a calculated escalation. Hock isn’t arguing that bad management is inefficient; he’s arguing it’s ethically corrupt. That word drags the office into the realm of rights and dignity, implying that coercion in "normal" institutions still counts as coercion. The context matters: Hock helped build Visa, a networked system that succeeded by coordinating independent actors rather than commanding them. His worldview is organizational design as democracy: leadership that enables autonomy, or else it degenerates into rule by fear.