Most of us have been in a meeting where something important was happening that nobody named. This is a story about what it takes to be the person who names it.

In our earlier Beyond Resilience pieces, readers met the Aurora Collective, an organization trying to move beyond the language of resilience and into more regenerative ways of leading, deciding, and working together. Aurora is not measuring success only by the traditional financial bottom line. It is also asking: are our people growing? Are they engaged? Do they feel the weight of real responsibility — and the support to carry it? Aurora is not trying to get it right once. It is trying to get better, together — less driven by control and extraction, more committed to the clarity, transparency, and congruence that make initiative and shared responsibility possible.

Jonas is a data analyst at Aurora — one of the people inside the organization who pays close attention to structure. He is not the loudest voice in the room, nor the most charismatic. He is the one who notices patterns. He gets consulted. He makes decisions and he notices when a gap between intention and practice quietly opens up.

So when Aurora’s leadership team announced a flatter structure, Jonas understood why people felt hopeful: Fewer layers. Fewer approvals. Decisions closer to the work. For anyone tired of bureaucracy, a flatter organization can sound like a breath of fresh air. The promise is easy to recognize: more voice, more ownership, more room to act.

But as Jonas listened, one question stayed with him.

If the hierarchy disappears on paper, but people still hesitate to name what is really happening, what actually changes?

Over the next few weeks, he began to see the tension more clearly.

On paper, Aurora really was flatter. Titles had gone. Reporting lines had loosened. Meetings felt less formal. But many important decisions still seemed to form in the same familiar ways. A conversation happened in a private chat before the wider meeting. Team members were asked for their thoughts — but the key decisions had already been made before anyone arrived.

A team member with a useful concern stayed silent. She wasn’t sure it was her place to speak.

None of this looked dramatic. That is part of the point.

In many organizations, power does not disappear when formal hierarchy loosens. It simply becomes less visible. It moves into side conversations, trusted relationships, unspoken assumptions, and people’s guesses about who really has influence. The issue is not only power in the abstract. It is also a lack of clarity, and then a lack of transparency, and then a lack of intentional, honest conversation. Being transparent and clear, and not shying away from those necessary conversations are essential traits especially in times of change and when facing concerns and resistance.

That is why the real tension is not simply “flat versus hierarchical.”

A hierarchy can become extractive when authority is concentrated, dissent is muted, and decisions are taken far from the people affected by them. But flat structures can create their own problems when influence remains hidden, when consultation is performative, or when responsibility is pushed outward without enough clarity to support real agency.

Think of the difference between these two situations.

In one team, a leader says, “I will make the final call, but I want your input before I do.” That may still be hierarchical, but it is explicit. People know where they stand.

In another team, everyone is told, “We decide together here,” but two senior people have already aligned privately and the meeting is really about gaining buy-in. That may look flatter, but it is less honest.

From a regenerative perspective, the deeper issue is whether influence is visible enough to be named, examined, and shared responsibly — or even challenged.

• Can people see how decisions are taking shape? At Aurora, important directions were sometimes already set before the wider team was invited in. Most people sensed it but no one named it.
• Can they tell the difference between being consulted and actually shaping an outcome? Being asked for input after the path is already leaning in one direction is not the same as having real influence. And people’s nervous systems know the difference, even if they cannot put words to their emotions.
• Can they speak openly when something feels unclear, premature, or quietly decided elsewhere? One team member had a useful concern — and stayed silent. She wasn’t sure it was her place to speak.

These are not side questions. They are part of what makes a system more attuned, more honest, and ultimately more regenerative.

Jonas eventually brought his concern into a leadership conversation. He did not arrive with a grand solution. He simply named what he was noticing: the structure had changed, but the organization had not yet developed a shared language for how influence was actually moving — who was shaping what, and when.

What he opened was not a theoretical debate about whether hierarchy is bad. It was a more practical inquiry: what do we need to notice, and what do we need to make more explicit, if we want this shift to be real?

That reflection matters. And it turns out, the practice of accepting it looks very specific.

Between now and when we next look in on Jonas, get curious about your workplace:

• What is it that you are noticing that can be made more explicit?
• What would benefit from being named?
• If it were to be named what would the positive ripples be?