Levels of Management

5. Levels of Management

In any organisation of reasonable size, management is not one single, uniform job — it is organised into a hierarchy of levels, each with a different mix of responsibilities. The three commonly recognised levels are:

(A) Top-level Management. This is the highest level — the Board of Directors, the Managing Director/CEO, and other top executives. Top management's key responsibilities are: setting the overall objectives and long-term policies of the organisation; making major strategic decisions (what business to be in, whether to expand, merge, or diversify); mobilising the resources (capital, major assets) the organisation needs; and being ultimately accountable to the owners/shareholders and to society at large for the organisation's overall performance.

(B) Middle-level Management. This level includes departmental heads, divisional managers, and branch managers — the link between top management and the lower/operational level. Middle management's key responsibilities are: interpreting and explaining the policies laid down by top management to the level below; preparing more detailed, department-level plans that carry out top management's broad goals; coordinating the activities of different sections within their department; and reporting department performance upward to top management while motivating and guiding the supervisors below them.

(C) Lower-level (Supervisory/Operative) Management. This is the level directly in charge of the actual workers who produce goods or deliver services — foremen, supervisors, section officers. Their key responsibilities are: assigning specific jobs to individual workers; supervising and guiding the day-to-day work directly; maintaining discipline and good working relations on the shop floor; solving workers' immediate grievances; and reporting the actual, on-the-ground performance upward to middle management.

How the mix of skills shifts across levels. Every manager, at every level, needs three broad kinds of skill — but in a different balance:

• Technical skill (specialised, hands-on knowledge of a particular method, process, or tool) matters MOST at the lower/supervisory level, where managers work most closely with the actual operational work.
• Human skill (the ability to work with, motivate, and lead people) matters roughly EQUALLY at all three levels — every manager, whatever their rank, works through people. …