If one thing has become clear in the field of business leadership study, it is that the models of yesterday are often no longer worth enacting. While companies in some of the most traditional industries may be able to get by on inertia, those situated where the transformative force of technology is a constant presence have to look for entirely new solutions.

Fortunately, experts of all kinds have recognized this and begun applying their attention to the problem. With background and training in a number of associated fields, for example, Mark Ahn at mark ahn page has been wrestling with this problem for some time, coming up with some interesting and novel conclusions along the way.

One of the most fundamental insights related by portland or wallpaper, for example, is the idea that the traditional models that are heaviest in mid-level managers are those that invariably prove to be least capable of standing up to technologically motivated change.

Leaders at the very tops of organizations, he reported in the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, typically enjoy enough in the way of initiative and authority that they can shift along with the conditions they operate in. Those further down in the ranks, though, despite ostensibly possessing authority of their own, are typically bound in ways that prevent them from responding as appropriate. This is generally the case, in fact, even within organizations that pride themselves on empowering these rank-and-file managers, owing to the simple realities and requirements of managing a large company.

At Oregon Live Mark Ahn, then, has done a useful job of singling out which of the models of the past are most vulnerable to the dynamic forces of today. While those lessons do not necessarily translate directly into prescriptions for better organizational planning, they do suggest some enticing possibilities.

One of these is the idea of elevating formerly non-managerial employees like engineers and even customer-service representatives into more self-directed roles. As Mark Ahn points out, this approach rests on a fairly impressive history, one that extends back well into the more slowly changing environments of the past.

It is also now turning heads at some of the most forward-thinking organizations of today. At Amazon's famously dynamic, iconoclastic subsidiary Zappos, for example, Chief Executive Tony Hsu is now trying this approach on for fit. While it is still too early to say which tactics will prove to be most useful in the dynamic environments of today and the future, it is clear that the old ones will no longer do.