When Hierarchy Sneaks Up

This past week, our schools hosted parent orientations at each campus. Since the teachers were there all day, we provided food for the staff. 

I happened to be standing nearby when the Principal of one school asked the Office Manager, “Are we ready to open lunch yet?” The Office Manager said it wasn’t lunchtime, but added, “You should eat before everyone else gets here.” I jokingly replied, “You weren’t going to offer me early access as well?” 

Based on the Office Manager’s reaction and assurance that I was important enough to eat early, I realized that my statement might not have clearly landed as a joke, especially since I’m her boss’s boss’s boss. Fortunately, I realized the error quickly enough to clarify that the Principal is way more important than I am. She adds way more value in terms of students’ learning and experience. After all, there’s a coverage plan for anytime she’s out of the building, whereas none exists for me.

That instance is just one example of how hierarchy has snuck up on me in this job. When students are present, all the adults use last names when talking to colleagues, but several people call me Mr. Moore every time we interact. The formality carries into the interactions themselves. When I approached a colleague the other day, even before I could say hello, she said, “What’s the problem?” I was taken aback until I remembered that, yes, most of our interactions start with me making a request about something that’s broken.

But here’s the disconnect that causes those moments to be surprising, rather than expected: I don’t take myself seriously, but I forget that it’s not obvious to people who aren’t in the team meetings where I’m cracking jokes or telling stories about my kids. They also don’t have access to my internal thoughts—i.e., the fact that I have the same uncertainties as everyone else. In other words, our interactions don’t help us stay level as colleagues. 

But because I forget those dynamics exist, it’s easier to make management mistakes. For example, I asked a technology associate to help me get access to the color printers at every school, but I didn't explicitly include the caveat, “if it takes more than five minutes, it’s not worth your time.” So when he ran into a hiccup, the request sat on his to-do list well past the point where it would have been fine to let it go. 

Those are relatively minor issues, though, compared to what can happen when hierarchy affects how a team makes decisions.

A few months ago, I traveled to Chicago to meet up with a few friends from business school. However, between when I looked up the weather to pack my bag and when I arrived, the forecast had drastically changed—much colder and, well, windier than expected. The weather change meant I was ill-prepared for the boat tour we planned to take on the river. 

Luckily, a clothing store a few blocks from our Airbnb had a jacket I could buy. My friend joined the shopping trip because he needed something too. By coincidence, the store uses a checkout system from a company where he is a senior executive. As we purchased our items, he asked the cashier how they liked the technology his company provides. She said, “It’s pretty good, but this part of the screen is confusing.” My friend instantly recognized the design issue, took a picture of the terminal, and sent it around to his team. 

If his team treats the photo as one more customer story—folded into everything else they’ve learned about customer needs—that’s great. But if they treat it as “a senior executive has instructed us to roll out a design update,” that can cause an urgent flurry of action that becomes a major diversion of time and resources. 

Similarly, a former boss told me he ultimately had to stop attending his team's brainstorming meetings because, whenever he floated an idea, he accidentally signaled to others that he had a strong point of view. What he thought were helpful comments ended up being interpreted as decisions about strategy.

There’s no magic fix for this. We can tell people constantly that it’s OK to disagree with us, but it’s human nature to respond to what (you think) the boss wants. The real work is building a team that can get past those dynamics, and that’s not a one-time effort. It matters because the team usually knows more than the leader does, and the last thing we should want is for them to turn off their judgment because they've decided every utterance by the leader is a command.