Who Thrives When There Are No Bosses?
A while ago, a Swiss Rebel Cell member posted an excellent question on our online community:
The question triggered a flood of responses from people deep in the self-management space: practitioners, founders, consultants, and researchers.
Among them, one of our Masterclass alumni (next Masterclass cohort start in Feb 2026) shared a paper by Lena Weirauch and her colleagues from the University of Bern I hadn’t seen before:
The study is fascinating.
Self-management makes work feel better
The researchers surveyed employees working in radically decentralized companies across Switzerland and Germany on key indicators of work quality and well-being.
They then compared these results with a matched sample from traditional organizations.
Their findings?
- Fewer pointless tasks People in radically decentralized companies reported significantly fewer “illegitimate tasks." That's the kind of work that makes you think, why am I even doing this?
- More appreciation People in the radically decentralized companies also felt far more valued by their peers. They reported appreciation scores that were off the charts compared to traditional workplaces.
In other words: when people organize in a self-managing way, work feels more meaningful.
And appreciation, it turns out, doesn’t need a manager’s pat on the back. In fact, it thrives highly in self-managing teams.
Not everyone thrives equally
The researchers didn’t stop there. They wanted to know who fits best in a self-managing environment.
They tested the famous Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) to see which ones predict satisfaction and fit.
Two stood out:
- Low neuroticism Calm, emotionally stable people (those who can handle ambiguity without freaking out) tend to thrive in radically decentralized companies.
- High agreeableness Cooperative, empathetic individuals (those who seek collaboration rather than dominance) fit best with self-management.
Against popular belief, that means the people who flourish in self-management aren’t necessarily the loudest voices in the room.
Who thrives are the steady ones. The listeners. The collaborators.
As the researchers note, self-managing systems seem to reward emotional stability and cooperation.
Not charisma or control.
Quite the opposite of what most traditional organizations tend to promote.
A simple question
In short: self-management makes people’s work lives more meaningful and more appreciated.
It makes it more human. And it attracts a certain kind of person: calm, cooperative, and emotionally mature.
So let me end with this:
Would you rather work with calm, cooperative colleagues in a radically decentralized system?
Or with moody, hard-to-work bosses in a traditional hierarchy?
I know what I’d choose.
