Have Your Hierarchy, But Don’t Be A Jerk About It

I believed that a flat, egalitarian workplace was what every diverse team needed and I never stopped to question it.

I led with this belief, my cultural value.

But others wanted differently.

The Briefcase Belief - What I Believed To Be True But Didn’t Examine

I was working as a leader in an intercultural organization. Myself and other leaders encompassed people from all over the world. It felt like a type of mini-United Nations, with all levels of staff working to support and serve newcomers to Canada.

I and other leaders wanted to create a co-sharing workplace where the traditional, Canadian hierarchy embedded into the non-profit would be more flatlined, more open to elevating everyone's perspective and embracing other practices of conducting work. Our aim was to embrace everyone's cultures, traditions, and global experiences into the way the business and organization operated.

In Canada, there’s a reason why our approach was egalitarian. Historically, the western world's extremist views of hierarchy created a society where the "survival of the most privileged" led to the annihilation, genocide, destruction of the Original Peoples and of Afro-Carribbean, Asian and East Asian peoples. We are still bearing the weight of this cruel type of hierarchy, even though it is now dressed in a more ‘polite’ marginalization and silencing of people. To strive for equity, to embed it into our policies, our schools, our pockets and to do it is exactly where we need to be and continue to work for.

As a leader, born and raised in the North American context, this belief was and still is fundamental to who I am. Everyone is equal.

But in equality, can hierarchy exist?

The Friction Moment - When My Understanding Collided With Others

The friction moment wasn’t a one-time event, a dramatic scene that catapulted collision and misunderstanding. No. This was frequent, small, isolated and consistent moments when our attempts to be inclusive and fair were met with hesitancy and resistance.

It was found in the tone of the conversation, in the quietness in the Board room when we asked questions, in the words we read from staff emails. When leadership attempted to be more approachable, when we postured ourselves to be servants of those who were working, conflict arose. And these repeated patterns of hesitancy and opposition ultimately came to a climactic point, where leaders left the organization.

What happened isn't rare. It’s not an occasional moment or a one-time incident. In fact, it is more common than you think.

It happens when a staff member hesitates to be honest with their boss and avoids conversation.

It happens when an executive walks into a room and wonders why no comes to his office after he implemented an open-door policy.

It happens when at the exit interview, the staff member remains silent after you ask how to improve the organization.

Leadership Misinterpretation - The Misread That Deepened The Friction

Staff members wanted hierarchy, a ranking system within the workplace where everyone had a designated place and a structured purpose. Ranking systems. Hierarchy. Organized structures within the workplace. These things aren't bad. In fact, the way we learned about our world, our family, the apex predator, much of the natural world around us reflect a type of hierarchy, ranking system or structure

What me and other leaders didn't realize, however, was that social hierarchy and workplace hierarchy are some of the most prominent forms of systems in many global cultures — whether symbolically or tangibly (i.e. wealth, education or prestige). Hierarchy is a social and cultural construct.

And this is what I failed to see as a leader.

In the North American context, hierarchy is individually based, self-centric and independent from everyone else. And because of the historical context of hierarchy extremism, equality is the solution and the reparation needed to mend and heal the harmful structures our hierarchies have created.

However, for example in East Asian cultures, Confucious teaching influences how hierarchy is perceived with the individual person viewing themselves as interdependent, grounded and formed and connected by their relationships to others. This type of hierarchy explains how much more collective and group-oriented East Asian cultures are.

Neither hierarchy is wrong. But how we navigate those hierarchies when they're present in the same boardroom, can create the friction.

The staff weren’t wrong to want what they did.

Neither were the leaders.

But we didn’t fully understand what the other person wanted, which led to a break down in leadership, leaving many feeling forced to leave.

The Hidden Cost - What The Collision Cost People And The Organization

People left - this was the biggest and most hidden cost. The organization was forced to rebuild from the bottom up. Leaders left deeply hurt, disillusioned and weary. Clients bore the brunt of organizational fracture with services and supports they relied on becoming more frail and more vulnerable.

The friction felt so big and so insurmountable. And the cost hidden and visible, was felt by everyone – clients, staff, leaders and the greater community. It was painful, it was disheartening and it crippled many wonderful people.

Executive Insight - Practical Applications And Tools For Leaders

Looking back, my biggest mistake was assuming that a Western egalitarian approach was what was needed. Hear me out, I still believe it is. But to be clear — my egalitarian approach didn't make room for hierarchy; it didn't include what others needed or how they truly functioned. So, my approach wasn't equal after all.

An egalitarian approach meant that I was open to others, that I implemented structures of hierarchy befitting to both the people that wanted it and the cultures they came from. That's what equality is — where everyone is not only included but held up as they are in policy, in projects, in procedures, in vision casting and in operations.

I needed to ask more questions. I needed to understand where the staff were coming from, what their perspective of hierarchy was. What did it look like in the Board room? In an email? How did they perceive my power? How did they perceive theirs? Asking and listening to understand could have gone a long way.

As a leader, what I take away from my experience and my encouragement to you is: it's okay to have hierarchy at work, just don't be a jerk about it.

How do we do it?

Examine Your Own View of What Hierarchy Looks Like

Does it include other people? How is it structured? Is it solely independent, self-centred? Remember, if you grew up in a western country or in the North American context, you hold many unseen and invisible lens of what equality and hierarchy look like. They are shaped in part but not understood by the whole. You cannot begin to strive for something or to be better at something if you don't know where you've started.

Implement Both Hierarchy and Equality

Continue to have that egalitarian mindset and embed both hierarchical and egalitarian structures in policy and in your everyday work. This might look like leading the Monday morning meeting, setting the vision for your team and then asking everyone for their perspective on how that vision lands for them. It might mean setting up an anonymous feedback mechanism at work so that staff who view your leadership with higher power and influence can provide feedback without feeling threatened or forced to perform outside of their own personal values of hierarchy.

And remember, this comes with conversations – not with assumptions. This comes with seeking to understand how power is perceived in your organization and where you can include everyone even with hierarchical structures.

Your Leadership Depends On Those Around You

Your leadership is interdependent, and must be shaped, influenced and formed by those you lead. Many of us aren't jerks. We come with good intentions, kind hearts and a willingness to be a leader of integrity. We strive to be equitable and fair. But a part of why we find these collisions and frictions happening is because we don't know who we are.

More importantly, we don't know who we are in relationship to others.

“There would be no self to identify with without the relationality of other selves. Without differentiation, there is no self. But without others, no differentiation is possible. You cannot be you without the rest of us.” How We Ended Racism

When we begin to recognize who we are and how we think, what we see or why we understand things a certain way, we can then begin to ask the right questions, listen longer and seek to understand others and who they are.

Accept That Friction Will Happen

We are people after all. We are all coming towards a task, a project, a vision with our own cultural mindsets — our own definitions of what decision making, professionalism and hierarchy look like. If we try to lead with the idea that we can just ignore it when it happens or we operate out of fear because we want to avoid it, then we will find that when the friction comes, people will leave just like I did. The cost will be heavy, and the legacy of pain can become the reputation of our business

Be ready for when it comes and when it does, accept it, listen, and seek to understand those around you.

Ultimately, the most important hierarchy you’ll ever navigate is the one inside yourself — know it well, and you’ll lead others with far more grace.