Holacracy Works for Regular Teams—Not Just Rockstars

Among its practitioners, it’s not uncommon to hear that Holacracy only works if your team is made up of people who are self-directed, proactive, and comfortable working without much oversight. 

I’ve supported dozens of organizations adopting Holacracy, and that’s not what I see in the field. In fact, when you look more closely, the claim doesn’t hold up on its face.

It might sound reasonable at first, but it rests on two shaky ideas: first, that people who aren’t showing leadership at work simply lack the capacity for it. And second, that Holacracy demands a high level of leadership from everyone, by design. Both of these assumptions are unverified. Holacracy doesn’t require exceptional people—it creates the conditions for everyone to step up.

To see why, we need to look more closely at how people behave—and what Holacracy actually expects.

1. Not Showing Leadership Doesn’t Mean Lacking It

The “leadership prerequisite” argument assumes that if someone isn’t showing leadership or initiative at work, they must be incapable of it. But that’s a leap. There are plenty of reasons someone might not express those traits in a given context. Maybe the environment discourages it. Maybe there’s no space for it. Or maybe there’s no clarity about what would even be welcomed.

To argue that someone lacks capacity, we’d need to see they never show initiative—not just at work, but anywhere in life. If someone never leads, never takes initiative, never acts independently—not at home, in hobbies, in church, in sports, or anywhere else—then yes, that could suggest a real lack of capacity. But I believe that’s rare. Most people show these qualities somewhere. If that’s true, then their absence at work isn’t about capability—it’s about context.

And if the context is what’s suppressing initiative, then what happens if we change it? In my experience, when the environment shifts—when people are given real authority and clear structure—some begin to show more initiative than they had before. That doesn’t prove the environment is the only limiting factor, but it does suggest that it’s one of them.

I’ve seen it firsthand. A quiet new hire at a small HR firm in the Midwest took on several new roles under Holacracy and ended up thriving in most of them. His confidence grew. So did his sense of ownership. He began to see—and express—that his voice mattered.

In a mid-sized company on the West Coast, a young woman who seemed stuck on the events team was able to take on roles in marketing. Before Holacracy, that had only been a personal hobby. Once given the chance, she started contributing—and eventually became one of the team’s key drivers in that area.

These aren’t isolated stories. Again and again, I’ve seen people engage more fully when given the space to do so.

2. Holacracy doesn’t require high initiative—it creates space for it

The second issue with the “leadership prerequisite” argument is a misunderstanding of what Holacracy actually asks of people. It’s true that Holacracy gives everyone the authority to lead within their roles.

Notably, the Holacracy Constitution—the core rules of the system—gives every role-filler “the authority to take any action or make any decision to enact your Role’s Purpose or Accountabilities” (article 4)—no permission required from a higher-up. It also states that “you may use your reasonable judgment to interpret” the Constitution or governance records, and “act based on your interpretations” (article 4.2).

That’s a lot of room for leadership, creativity, and initiative—but it’s exactly that: room. The framework grants authority, but doesn’t force anyone to use it in a particular way or at a particular intensity.

On the other hand, the constitution is surprisingly modest in its expectations. Each role-filler is responsible for a few basic things, such as:

• Paying attention to what’s getting in the way of their role and noticing tensions (article 1.2.1)
• Doing something about those tensions—taking the next logical action (article 1.2.5)
• Keeping track, in writing, of their projects and next-actions (article 1.2.4)

You’re not required to lead sweeping change, drive bold innovation, or run team-wide initiatives. You just need to notice when something’s off, take a next step, and write it down somewhere. Use a fancy project management tool or a sticky note on your desk—up to you, both satisfy the requirement.

And those basic behaviors scale. For a cashier, processing a tension might mean noticing they’re straining their back while bagging groceries—and adjusting their stance. For a CEO, it might mean sensing a company-wide misalignment and proposing a major strategic change. In both cases, they’re doing what Holacracy asks: noticing something that’s off, and acting on it.

The level of initiative isn’t dictated by Holacracy—it’s dictated by the role, the work, and the person.

If you’re a CEO, you’ll need a higher level of judgment, awareness, and decision-making. But that’s true whether you’re using Holacracy or not. A framework can’t lower the demands of high-complexity roles. What Holacracy can do is make those demands more transparent, so the need for capacity is clearer.

That brings me to the bigger point:

3. The Work Demands the Leadership—Not Holacracy

Holacracy doesn’t create the need for leadership—it simply makes it visible. If a role genuinely doesn’t require much initiative, Holacracy doesn’t force it. But when a role does demand more, Holacracy won’t let that remain hidden either.

Holacracy removes many of the usual barriers to action—confusing authority lines, red tape, and unclear paths to making change. It’s like a snowplow clearing the road ahead. Whether anyone chooses to accelerate down that road is up to them—or up to the organization as a whole.

But now, at least, the road is clear.

The idea that Holacracy only works with highly self-driven workers misunderstands both the framework and the people inside it. The framework is not a test of individual capacity. It’s a tool that helps people see where they can contribute—and gives them permission to do so.

And in doing so, it helps uncover capacity that’s often already there, just waiting for a chance to be used.