Why is analogy of an octopus used to describe many business leaders

The default metaphor when we think of our business organizations is the human body.

Explanation: An octopus could offer something fresh for the designers of our business organizations. The brain power of an octopus is highly decentralized, making some biologists think it has got close to a dozen brains (and associated consciousness-es). In our traditional business organizations, intelligence is highly localized or, at its best, restricted to certain divisions and hierarchical levels. All other divisions and levels are supposed to follow the orders from the brain center. Even in some of our so-called 'futuristic' designs, those in which decision authority is somewhat decentralized to numerous autonomous units, decision quality still suffers due to the lack of brain resources available to those units. If these autonomous units had sufficient 'neuronal concentration', these could have become more meaningfully autonomous - like the octopuses.

The default metaphor when we think of our business organizations is the human body.

Explanation:

c. bounced back and forth from worthless to worth a lot and back to worthless

the social contract theory