Some views on management revolve around vertical differentiation, or creating an hierarchical view of managers. This is useful to visualize as a chart, where top management is logically at the top, overseeing the entire organization. Middle managers are in the middle, acting as a bridge between upper management and certain work groups. Lower managers are task or process oriented, managing functional specialists and projects.
The Pros and Cons of Vertical Thinking
The primary advantage of this perspective is that different management professionals can view the organization from different angles. Top-level managers tend to focus mostly on strategy and bigger picture thinking, while middle managers focus on aligning a large work group towards shared objectives. Frontline management thrives in pursuing operational efficiency, hiring on entry and mid-level talent, and assessing performance.
On the downside, this tends to consolidate power at the top of the organization, of building steep corporate ladders and often heavily polarized income. It can also create one-way information flows, where top management creates plans without understanding the core processes of the organization. Managing organizations vertically can reduce flexibility and agility.
FedEx Organizational Structure
This is an organizational structure example which cleanly demonstrates a vertical delegation of managerial responsibilities. The higher the level of management, the broader their scope. This means that lower level managers have a high degree of detail-orientation.
Top-level Management
Core Characteristics
High level managers tend to have a substantial amount of experience, ideally across a wide variety of functions. Many become part of an executive team through mastering their functional disciplines across various roles, become the Chief Operations Officer (COO), Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Chief Technology Officer (CIO or CTO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO) or Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Top management teams are also often industry experts, having a close association with the long term trajectory of the businesses they operate in. They often benefit from being charismatic, powerful communicators with a strong sense of accountability, confidence, integrity and a comfort with risk.
Responsibilities
The primary role of the executive team, or the top-level managers, is to look at the organization as a whole and derive broad strategic plans. Company policies, substantial financial investments, strategic alliances, discussions with the board, stakeholder management and other top-level managerial tasks are often high-risk high return decision-making initiatives in nature. Top-level management roles are therefore often high stress and high influence roles within the organization.