At Impact Hub Vienna – including our Climate Lab, Future Health Lab and Education Lab – we work on complex societal challenges: climate transition, social innovation, health, education, entrepreneurship and systemic change. The work we do is rarely linear. It requires collaboration across disciplines, fast learning, shared ownership and the ability to respond to changing realities.
That is why the way we organize ourselves matters. Since 2013, we have been using Holacracy as our operational system. Over the past thirteen years, it has shaped how we distribute authority, define roles, make decisions and continuously adapt our organization.
We do not operate through a traditional management hierarchy where most decisions move upwards before they can move forward. Instead, Holacracy helps us distribute authority into clearly defined roles and creates transparent processes for changing how the organization works.
For us, Holacracy is not a buzzword and not a culture experiment. It is a practical answer to a central question: How can people have real agency while still working within a clear, accountable and collaborative structure?
One of the most common misunderstandings about Holacracy is that it means “no hierarchy” or “everyone decides everything together.” That is not how we understand or practice it.
There is still hierarchy in Holacracy. But the hierarchy is not primarily a hierarchy of people. It is a hierarchy of purpose, roles and accountabilities. Instead of asking, “Who is your boss?”, the more relevant question becomes: “Which role holds the authority to decide this?”
This distinction changes a lot in daily work. A person may hold several roles across different areas of the organization. A role comes with a clear purpose, accountabilities and decision-making authority. Within that role, the person is trusted to act without waiting for permission from a manager at every step. If something falls within your role, you are expected to move it forward.
This can be highly empowering. It allows colleagues to take decisions close to the work, where the relevant knowledge often sits. It reduces unnecessary bottlenecks. It makes it easier to see who is responsible for what. And it helps us stay entrepreneurial, even as our group has grown across several locations, teams and fields of work.
At the same time, agency is not the same as unlimited freedom. Holacracy works because authority has boundaries. Roles are explicit. Expectations are visible. And when something is unclear, there are processes to clarify it.
Our way of working is deeply connected to one of our core values: trust.
For us, trust means accountability with autonomy. People are given real responsibility, and they are expected to own it. They do not need to ask for permission for every step. They do not need to wait until someone more senior validates each decision. They are trusted to act in the best interest of the organization, the team and the purpose of their role.
But trust is not blind. It is built through clarity, transparency and reliability. We keep commitments. We communicate openly. We share information early. We assume good intent, even when things get difficult. And we give and ask for feedback respectfully.
This is where Holacracy and culture meet. The structure gives people authority. The culture helps them use it well.
In many organizations, job titles stay the same even when the actual work has changed long ago. In our case, we try to make the organization more adaptable.
When a new need emerges, a new role can be created. When an existing role no longer fits reality, it can be changed. When responsibilities are unclear, they can be clarified. This happens through governance processes, not through informal politics or hidden negotiations.
That means our organizational structure is never completely “finished.” It evolves with the work.
This is especially important in a group like ours. Across Impact Hub Vienna, Climate Lab, Future Health Lab and Education Lab, new partnerships emerge, programs develop, spaces grow, communities change and new strategic priorities appear. We need a structure that can move with that reality and include people more fluidly, based on strengths and contribution rather than formal position.
Holacracy is often associated with autonomy. But autonomy only works if it is connected to collaboration.
Our second core value, collaboration, means turning individual strengths into collective impact. We believe that impact emerges from the meeting of diverse perspectives: within our team, across our locations and with our wider ecosystem.
In practice, this means that clear roles should not create silos. They should make collaboration easier. When we know who holds which responsibility, we can ask better questions, make clearer requests and work together with less confusion.
This is especially important across our group. We operate through different locations, legal entities, thematic communities, programs and partnerships. The work is interconnected. Holacracy helps us make this complexity more visible and manageable.
It also encourages people to become part of projects through the value they can add, not only through formal position. In practice, this means that someone can contribute because they hold a relevant role, bring a needed skill, have important context or see a meaningful tension that should be addressed. This makes collaboration more fluid and allows people to bring their strengths into different contexts.
The third value that shapes our way of working is courage.
Courage means showing up – not because it is easy, but because it matters. In our daily work, this often means speaking up, questioning assumptions, giving honest feedback or making a decision even when the outcome is not fully clear.
Holacracy gives this courage a practical channel. It invites people to work with “tensions”: the gap between how things are and how they could be better. A tension does not have to be a conflict. It can be an opportunity, an inefficiency, an unclear accountability, a missing role or a decision that needs to be made.
Instead of waiting for “management” to notice and solve everything, we have processes which are built to invite people to bring these tensions to light. That can be uncomfortable. But it is also powerful. It means everyone can contribute to improving the organization.
This is one of the reasons why Holacracy is not always easy. It asks people to be active participants in the system, not passive recipients of decisions. It also constantly confronts us with our own habits: the temptation to control too much, to seek alignment where a role could decide, or to wait for someone else to take responsibility. Holacracy challenges us day in and day out, which is tough, but also makes us more resilient, both individually and collectively.
Another misconception is that Holacracy replaces leadership. Our experience is the opposite: it asks for more leadership, not less.
Leadership becomes an essential skill for every team member. When authority sits in roles, everyone is asked to lead within their area of responsibility: to make decisions, ask for input, communicate clearly, process tensions and move work forward without waiting for constant approval.
This does not mean that everyone carries the same scope of responsibility. People with a wider span of responsibility still play a crucial role. They need to provide orientation, context, feedback and support. They need to help people grow into responsibility, sense where clarity is missing, where people are overloaded and where the system needs to evolve.
This kind of leadership is not always visible in the classic sense. It is not about being the final approval point for everything. It is about enabling others to lead from their roles.
In that sense, Holacracy does not reduce the need for leadership. It raises the bar. Because when people have more autonomy, leadership becomes even more important: to build trust, strengthen collaboration and help people act with clarity and responsibility.
Working with Holacracy for thirteen years does not mean we have “figured it out.”
Implementing and living Holacracy is never easy. It is not a system you introduce once and then simply run in the background. It requires ongoing practice, reflection and adaptation.
This is especially true as we grow. Many team members have joined us at different points in our journey, which means that Holacracy experience varies across the organization. Leadership styles differ. Each location develops its own culture, shaped by its team, community, partners and thematic focus. And the needs of the organization keep changing.
So Holacracy remains a learning process. We revisit how we use it. We notice where it helps and where it creates friction. We try to become clearer in our roles, more transparent in our decisions and more honest in how we process tensions.
After thirteen years, we do not see Holacracy as a finished achievement. We see it as a practice.
We believe deeply in this way of organizing work. But we also want to be honest: Holacracy is demanding.
It requires self-leadership. It asks people to take responsibility, not only for their tasks, but also for improving the system around them. It requires comfort with change, because roles and structures can evolve. It requires clarity in communication, because authority and expectations need to be made explicit. And it requires the courage to raise tensions instead of waiting for someone else to fix them.
For some people, this is energizing. They appreciate the agency, transparency and possibility to shape the organization. For others, it can feel unfamiliar or even uncomfortable, especially if they are used to very clear top-down instructions.
That is okay. We do not believe every working model fits every person.
But for people who want to take ownership, who enjoy learning, who value clarity over status and who want to contribute beyond a narrow job description, this way of working can be deeply meaningful.
Ultimately, Holacracy is not the goal. The goal is to build an organization capable of doing meaningful work in a complex world.
We want decisions to be made by the people closest to the work. We want colleagues to feel trusted and accountable. We want collaboration to happen across roles, locations and disciplines. We want leadership to empower rather than control. And we want people to have the courage to shape the organization they are part of.
This is how we operate differently. Not perfectly. Not without friction. But intentionally.
Because if we want to support entrepreneurs, innovators and partners in building a more sustainable and inclusive future, we also need to keep asking how we build an organization where people can do their best work.
About the Author: Jakob Detering is our Managing Director, leading the portfolio of Impact Hub, Climate Lab, Future Health Lab, and Education Lab. A recognized impact entrepreneur and organization builder, Jakob also has been a key driving force in transforming the Social Impact Award into the world’s leading community of early-stage social entrepreneurs. He brings extensive experience in scaling social ventures and driving systemic change across Europe and beyond.
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