I've observed a correlation between successful high-complexity, high-risk, high-unknowns, high-payoff efforts and high-trust work environments, that extend down to the lowest rungs of an organization's totem pole.
I suspect it works this way because to put it into software architecture terms, the trust is a microservice delivery model prerequisite, so people can loosely couple as needed to efficiently work on blockers. I find it ironic that many laypeople see the US military as a rigidly stratified, top-down command and control organization, but speaking to many military members, I find the amount of trust (once earned) placed in startlingly young and junior members far exceeds most commercial organizations. Despite all the military war stories of ineptitude and incompetence, I don't think it is a coincidence that compared to the average commercial organization, the military is still perceived by many to "get 'er done".
This is fantastically difficult to achieve because it requires a from-the-top commitment to developing human, empathic leadership on top of management (which is already a difficult to master skill set by itself). It takes enormous emotional guts and vulnerability to be in that kind of leadership; I know it would challenge my personal limits for sure, possibly even break them. This takes decades of continuous work without interruption through top leadership succession evolutions.
I suspect it works this way because to put it into software architecture terms, the trust is a microservice delivery model prerequisite, so people can loosely couple as needed to efficiently work on blockers. I find it ironic that many laypeople see the US military as a rigidly stratified, top-down command and control organization, but speaking to many military members, I find the amount of trust (once earned) placed in startlingly young and junior members far exceeds most commercial organizations. Despite all the military war stories of ineptitude and incompetence, I don't think it is a coincidence that compared to the average commercial organization, the military is still perceived by many to "get 'er done".
This is fantastically difficult to achieve because it requires a from-the-top commitment to developing human, empathic leadership on top of management (which is already a difficult to master skill set by itself). It takes enormous emotional guts and vulnerability to be in that kind of leadership; I know it would challenge my personal limits for sure, possibly even break them. This takes decades of continuous work without interruption through top leadership succession evolutions.