We have investigated organizations we consider having an elitist approach. Wehave researched how these approaches are manifested, managed, and what pros and cons that the approach can result in. Common consequences of an elitist approach include high perfor-mance and efficiency, but also high levels of stress and anxiety among employees. The organ-izations we chose for the study were a sales company and a consulting firm. The concept of elitist approach is broken down into three elements: achievement, culture and legitimacy. We made our own model of how the three components relate to each other and how so-called chan-nels, give power to the different components. The different channels are ambition, status, hier-archy and competition. During the study we encountered that in order to counteract the negative effects associated with an elitist approach, the organizations was using a compassionate culturewhich was surprising for the author group.