I teach management and leadership. Recently, the topic in one of my classes was change and stress. I asked my students, who are nearly all employed and range in age from 19 to 55, what caused them the greatest stress in the workplace. Among the various responses were several related to how they and their peers get direction.

They reported regularly getting orders from as many as 15 different entities. One of these was their boss. A few more came from the bosses’ bosses. Most, however, came from people for whom they did not work. Some came from the aides of people for whom they worked. Many of the people from whom they got orders were people they did not know. In several cases, their orders apparently did not even come from individuals; they came from entities such as human relations, Internet learning, security, payroll, organizational development, and purchasing.

It gets worse.

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