Corporate Hierarchy

You take a job out of college. You’re the lowest person on a totem pole. You report to a boss, who reports to his or her boss, who reports to another person, and so on. People might call this the “Chain of Command.”

In business speak, however, we know it as a corporate hierarchy. This is the power structure of an organization that formalizes job responsibility, leadership functions, and decision-making. The hierarchy extends down from entry-level and interns...all the way up to senior management and executive suite members, like the CFO and CEO. In many ways, the delegation of responsibility looks like a triangle.

You can’t just have people without titles and total disorganization. It’d be chaos.