Except, now those companies have no leadership at all so just tell the workers to just do whatever seems like a good idea and hope for the best?
Why haven't we seen a bunch of successful companies without any management if management is so useless/harmful? Just ICs self-organizing to run the whole business. Without any execs to pay they'd have a cost advantage running that way.
Oh, yeah, because those companies have really proven that their leadership is so incredibly valuable.
The problem with evaluating leadership is we almost always talk in terms of impact ("this decision saved/made/lost the company $X million/billion per year") as opposed to performance over replacement ("compared to an average person we could have hired to fulfill this role, how'd you do?"). The nature of a capitalist system is that large piles of money tend to get bigger, and companies are giant piles of money. If you are in a position of power, on average you're going to make the company more money. That doesn't make you exceptionally valuable, as pretty much anyone we could have put in that slot was going to make money.
Talent here is very often having friends on the board, through common investments and co-ownership of those private jet/ luxury yacht/luxury hostel rentals that operates 'at a loss' (you only pay consumption taxes on your direct spending, if the company rent you the plane for the cost of kerosene, and you pay yearly through your holdings for fixed costs, you avoid a lot of taxes. Tips from a friend who works at one of those places).
That network of insiders colluding behind the scenes are NOT providing optimal results for the shareholders, or for the market in general. They are instead optimizing their own short term gains at the expense of everyone else.
A bunch of good old boys making handshake deals with their buddies aren't actually choosing the best products and services for the best price, and the companies they helm will eventually suffer for it as the entire market does each time it happens.
Why haven't we seen a bunch of successful companies without any management if management is so useless/harmful? Just ICs self-organizing to run the whole business. Without any execs to pay they'd have a cost advantage running that way.