I find "Turn the Ship Around!" to be an interesting companion to this essay. It provides an excellent example of how, if you do it right, a well-defined structure can actually be quite empowering to people at all levels of the organization.
Speaking from personal experience, I've seen it myself at one previous employer. The clear hierarchy and delegation of ownership and responsibilities made it easier for everyone to get things done and enhanced everyone's sense of psychological safety. People explicitly knowing exactly what authority they do and do not have means they can make confident decisions without feeling the need to play wasteful and exhausting games of "mother may I" with the latent power structure for fear of accidentally stepping on influential toes.
Seconding that book. It's one of several things that got me to realize that a lot of the problems I had seen with hierarchies were not fundamental to the idea of a hierarchy but rather functions of culture, practices and individuals.
It's also made me sad that finding teams that operate like that is really hard, and they often don't changes in management :( I had an absolutely amazing several years working on a team like that at Target of all places, until the broader Target culture caught up to us...
If you were willing to write a larger passage, I would sure appreciate your good experience at Target and what made it special relative to "Turn The Ship Around".
Speaking from personal experience, I've seen it myself at one previous employer. The clear hierarchy and delegation of ownership and responsibilities made it easier for everyone to get things done and enhanced everyone's sense of psychological safety. People explicitly knowing exactly what authority they do and do not have means they can make confident decisions without feeling the need to play wasteful and exhausting games of "mother may I" with the latent power structure for fear of accidentally stepping on influential toes.