What you've written here seems far more humane and resonant than the OP, which seems gimmicky even as he decries gimmickry. My emotional receptors just don't be

What you've written here seems far more humane and resonant than the OP, which seems gimmicky even as he decries gimmickry. My emotional receptors just don't believe him. I believe it's important for people to treat each other as equals first, roles second. Any trace of personal identification with an authority role (or a subordinate role, for that matter) acts like a grain of sand in a place where a grain of sand shouldn't be. The trouble with management comes when a person's sense of self inflates to fill the role, something they don't deserve because no one does. This is marvelously illustrated by the experiment that showed that people designated "leader" for no reason whatsoever are significantly more likely to take an extra cookie for themselves. When one is captured by this self-inflation bias, it doesn't make things better to apply trust-building tricks to get people to "say shit"; that is condescension, and it confuses matters. I'd be interested in reading an article by you on this topic, if you ever write one.