If one does not relate these points to increases in production, as research in organizational sociology does, but rather to increases in power, one can then ask whose power really profits from increasing reciprocities. How do power opportunities between superiors and subordinates change under such conditions, if the complexity of their possible relationships increases? Obviously the ability of the superior to absorb complexity is narrowly limited. Since precisely this is the source of the subordinate's power, one must suppose that each increase in complexity alters the power relationship in favour of the subordinate, with the result that the more complex an organizational system, the less susceptible it is to leadership.

XREF: Relates to power dynamics and organizational sociology; connects to theories of complex systems and distributed power.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 799