Why the Octopus Organization Model Is Built for Women in Leadership

Octopus with eight arms symbolizing autonomous teams and modern leadership

Years ago, I heard this statistic: the life expectancy of a business book is 18 days. That’s it. All those books on achieving goals, leadership, maximizing growth, in 18 days there will be a new one with a different spin on an old concept. Over the years as an executive, I’ve seen different models around leadership and management to achieve results. Models like TQM, or Six Sigma, organizational structures such as traditional hierarchical or a flat, leadership styles like servant, transformational, or participative, were all touted as the approach to achieve maximum results. At the end of the day though they all treat people as things and leaders as overlords. Of all the models I have seen come and go, not one was built with women leaders in mind. This one might be the first.

Every once in a while, a new theory comes out that challenges all of that and makes you think. Recently the Harvard Business Review published an interesting article by Jana Werner and Phil Le-Brun on how to become an Octopus Organization¹. What is intriguing about this model is that it doesn’t think of people as things, it looks at them with curiosity as independent mechanisms to adapt to a complex world.

Why an octopus? According to the authors it is because the octopus is “an adaptive and curious sea dweller whose arms can think and act independently yet work in perfect concert.” The business world I joined in the 90s is very different than the business world today. It is fast moving, complex, and far more relational than before. People want to be inspired and heard. They want ownership of their work. Octopus organizations, they posit, tap the intelligence of their people and use signs to learn and shift course to navigate uncertainty.

What makes the symbol of an octopus so powerful is that it is biological, not mechanical. Every other leadership model I have come across imagines an organization as a machine, inputs, outputs, levers to pull. The octopus is something else entirely. Each of its eight arms can act independently, meaning the arms do not simply execute commands from the brain. They sense, decide, and act on their own. And yet the octopus moves with unity. It goes with purpose yet will act as one swiftly when challenged. That is the vision for an Octopus Organization: people and teams with genuine autonomy, operating within a shared sense of direction, adapting in real time to what is in front of them with critical thought and not waiting for approval. In today’s world, that is not just a compelling idea. It is a survival skill.

When it comes to leadership, a leader’s role is no longer about removing obstacles or commanding from above. It is about trusting people, defining a clear purpose, creating psychological safety, and clarifying who owns what outcomes. Communication shifts from directing to listening and questioning. The leader’s job is to create the conditions for success. Then get out of the way.

So what does this actually look like on a Monday morning? It may mean re-evaluating your daily check-in and instead make it weekly or bi-weekly. It may mean next time someone brings you a problem, you resist the pull to solve it and instead ask “what do you think we should do?” It creates feedback loops to see what is working and what is not. It starts small. These are not grand gestures. They are small, deliberate shifts in how authority flows, and over time, they compound into something very different from the organizations most of us grew up working in.

What intrigues me about this concept is that it plays to women leaders’ strengths. My issue with servant leadership is that it is inherently sexist. It says you should do everything for your team. Your goal is to serve the team and prioritize their needs over all else. It sounds good in concept, but when you look at it, it equates leadership with the more traditional subservient roles of women rather than authentic power. But this new model, the Octopus, focuses on empathy, continuous learning, and pushes authority outward. It isn’t about serving. It is about influencing to achieve results. It relies on a higher degree of emotional intelligence. Which research shows that women hold a leadership advantage because of their higher EQ. ²

I can speak to this from my own evolution as a leader. When I first started in business, my style mirrored what I observed in the men around me, direct, concise, no room for what felt like messy things: anxiety, uncertainty, the emotional undercurrents of a team under pressure. I thought that was what being credible looked like. Over time, I started to see what was actually working. The leaders who built the most resilient teams were not the ones with the loudest voices or the clearest org charts. They were the ones who asked better questions, who created space for people to say what they were really thinking, and who were willing to try something new even when the outcome was uncertain. I can still be very direct as there are moments when that is exactly what is called for. But I have become far more open to collaboration, to sitting with ambiguity, and not just tolerant of failure but genuinely adamant that new ideas need to be tried. That shift did not make me a softer leader. It made me a more effective one.

Reading the HBR article, I had one of those “finally, someone said it” moments. The principles Werner and Le-Brun describe are ones I’ve been building into my leadership programs for years. In my Essentials course, we focus on directional clarity, using influence to inspire rather than mandate, and building an inclusive culture where people feel real ownership. In Executive Edge, we go deeper into purposeful communication and leading with empowerment. Throughout both, curiosity is treated as a leadership competency, not a soft skill, but a strategic one. Failure is framed not as something to avoid, but as evidence that people are stretching.

If any of this resonates, I’d invite you to start with one question: where in your organization are the arms not allowed to think? Where are decisions being pulled upward that don’t need to be? Where are people waiting for the permission they should already have? You don’t need to redesign your org chart to start leading like an Octopus. You need to notice one place where you’re holding the reins tighter than the situation requires and let go.

The business book lifecycle may be 18 days, but the underlying question never changes: how do you bring out the best in people in an unpredictable world? The Octopus model offers a compelling answer, not because it’s new, but because it finally names what great leaders have always known. And for women who have spent careers being told that our instincts, to listen, to collaborate, to sit with uncertainty, were weaknesses rather than assets, this model does something none of the others did. It tells the truth. Trust your people. Push authority outward. Stay curious. The arms can think. Let them.

1: Become an Octopus Organization. How your company can adapt to a complex world, Jana Werner and Phil Le-Brun, Nov-Dec 2025. https://hbr.org/2025/11/become-an-octopus-organization

2: Emotional Intelligence and Transformational Leadership: Meta-Analysis and Explanatory Model of Female Leadership Advantage, J Intell. 2022 Nov 14;10(4):104. doi: 10.3390/jintelligence10040104