CIPD calls for review of office hierarchy
New CIPD research has found that rigid organisational hierarchies are a formidable barrier to improving management and leadership skills in the workplace. It is important to review the positions of staff in the workplace to see what’s working and what isn’t.
Employees without official managerial responsibility are often expected to lead from the front line and do what’s best for both their customers as well as their employer. This approach of distributed leadership, can come with many drawbacks including poorly targeted training and restrictive organisational structures that get in the way.
So the question is, should you take a good hard look at the hierarchy system in your workplace? The short answer is yes.
In some businesses leadership and development can rely too much on increasing the capability of individual leaders and managers. It’s often found that these organisations have outdated structures preventing potential new leaders from applying leadership skills that they’ve learnt to their everyday work.
The only way to really combat this is through training staff correctly to deal with these responsibilities and to perform managerial roles.
The fast-moving pace of change in the world requires this more distributed approach to leadership. Rigid organisational systems with short-term focus can negatively affect businesses by stifling the productivity of the organisation.
