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Welcome to Manager Tools.
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This is Sarah and I'm Mark.
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Today's podcast the Difference Between Line and Staff Leadership Part 1 of 1 as
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always, folks, our content has been crafted by humans and is now certified by the Proudly Human Corporation. The questions this cast answers are, what are line and staff leadership positions? Should I treat line and staff demands differently? How can I stay focused on my key responsibilities?
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If you want answers to these questions and more, keep listening. You want to know something our licensees love? Every time we release a new episode, we send them the full show notes straight to their inbox. No more scrambling to find that one thing Mark said three episodes ago. It's all there. Key takeaways, action items ready to reference or share with their team whenever they need it. Emailed show notes are just one of the many benefits of a Manager Tools license. Head to manager-tools.com memberships to learn more about what a license gets you. Today we're talking about management leadership as we always do on this podcast, and it's really hard enough to get time to manage your team with all of the responsibilities that come with that. And to be honest, we don't think there's very much respect for what line managers and even senior managers have to do on a daily and weekly basis.
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Yeah, but there's also a misunderstanding among first and second level managers, and sometimes even in some cases because they learned at lower levels and even higher level managers in terms of who really has the authority to direct you and task you. The fact is, the only leaders who can truly task you are those leaders who are in your direct chain of leadership.
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Now while that may be true, Mark, unfortunately that doesn't stop staff leaders and executives from expecting swathes of lower level managers from responding to their demands. Now they're wrong. And frontline managers have much more room than they think to deprioritize some of those other demands that are coming from staff functions. And that's what we're going to talk about today.
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It just occurs to me that some of the staff people are going to write in and say, wait, wait, wait, we need stuff, and so on. But unfortunately that's not how modern organizations are organized and the way organizational theory flows through the organization. Okay, so we have three points in our outline. First, there is a difference between staff and line managers, and our guidance is twofold. Prioritize demands and guidance from line leaders. And unfortunately for you staff people, I'm sorry, but this is the way it's supposed to be. Managers at lower levels deprioritize demands from staff organizations.
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Okay, so let's start by really defining line and staff leadership and what that means, what the difference is. Yeah, folks, line leaders are those who are in your direct chain of leadership. So examples of line leaders for you are your boss, her boss, his boss, and all the way on up to the CEO of your organization. I mean, it's simple. I mean it's a really simple definition,
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but again, it's simple. But people don't understand line and staff. They just don't.
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Absolutely, absolutely. And folks, you should know who your boss reports to directly and who they report to directly, and who they report to directly and so on all the way up the organization.
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Yeah, you know, if I was six levels down or seven levels down, I'd have not the entire org chart which everybody focuses on, but rather me at the bottom and then my boss and her boss and her boss and his boss all the way to the top. Now look, staff leaders, and they're still leaders, folks, valuable to the organization and in many cases quite powerful are those who are not in your direct chain of leadership or authority. And I want to make a point here, for the record, Manager tools does not use the term chain of command when we talk about civilian organizations because command is actually a very specific military term that relates to the unique authorities that military commanders actually legally have that civilian leaders do not have. So that's why we say chain of leadership and chain of authority. You probably are thinking chain of command, but we would encourage you in your future development to think of it as leadership or authority and not command. Because that's reserved specifically for the military.
- [04:59]
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Yeah, exactly. Now some classic examples of staff leadership are human resources, finance, accounting, payroll, legal compliance, IT strategic planning, marketing, audit training, quality learning and development, investor relations and public affairs, just to name a few. Because there are many, many more folks. But those are just some of the examples of staff leadership that you, you come across in your day to day.
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Naturally. Yeah. And the fact is folks, it's not obvious for the vast majority of lower level managers, but there is a stark difference in the operational and political clout of line leaders versus staff leaders.
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Now note that in these definitions there are some leaders who are left out. I mean those line leaders whom you do not report to in your chain of authority or your chain of leadership. Now, in most cases, barring political calculations on your part, line leaders like sales, manufacturing, etc. Who are not in your direct chain of authority should be considered much more like staff functions than like line functions.
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Right?
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Yeah. Yeah. So to be fair, you should Know those line leaders who are the friends of your boss, who are not the friends of your boss. And you should also respond differentially to their requests based upon who your boss's friends are and who your boss's enemies are. I mean, your boss would themself if they were the one being asked to do this thing, which they're not. Because if your boss were going to say yes to someone, then that person would ask your boss, let's be clear. But essentially you should be taking into account what your boss would think of the request before simply blindly saying, oh, yes, absolutely, just because that individual is at a higher position of authority than your position.
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Yeah. The classic example is your boss's peer directs you to do something. Okay. Now, our guidance in that case is fairly political, which is if he or she is your boss's friend, you're generally going to respond favorably. Okay, you're going to prioritize it. But if they're not your boss's friend, if they're an antagonist to your boss or they don't have any relationship at all, even though they're a peer, you would deprioritize those requests. Now, it gets harder as somebody three levels up, but not in your chain of authority demands or tasks you to do something. But in this case, our guidance is pretty simple. If they're not in your direct line of leadership, direct line of authority, you don't have to prioritize those things. And I also want to say one other thing, because there's an area here that we're not being clear about. If you yourself are in a staff function like you're in it or you're an HR or so on, even if you're a manager while you're not a line leader, you should take this guidance to mean that you will respond differentially to your own chain of authority than you would to those who are not in your direct chain of authority. You may have to just get approval from your boss if you don't know about your boss's relationship to that person. Hey, boss, I've got a thing here. I want to make sure that this is. You're in alignment with this, and this is something that I should prioritize. Now, it's entirely possible you work for a boss who thinks everybody at his or her level and a above can absolutely task you. That boss doesn't understand politics. He doesn't understand organizational theory. He doesn't understand organizational systems. And that's a tough situation. And we're not telling you to tell your boss to go Pound sand. We are telling you that your first response depends upon the fundamental decision about line versus staff.
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And I in a small, tiny little segue here, I wonder if anybody out there is getting the sense that you want to have good relationships within the organization. I mean, because you might not be in a line position of. A position of line authority over an individual and want their help, and therefore having good relationships matters.
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Yeah, up, down, and sideways as well.
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That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Okay, so now that we talked about the difference between line and staff leaders, let's talk about prioritizing demands and guidance from line leaders over staff leaders. Now, while it should be obvious, sometimes it's necessary to say the things that go unsaid. So I will be the one to say it. If you are a line manager tasked by someone in your direct line of authority or leadership, those demands should be prioritized. Period.
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Now, when we say prioritize, it's within the scope of what else you're working on. And you may actually have a line leader demanding something or tasking you or requesting something that you may have to not put first on your list. But you can't ignore that demand. You can't. So the simple answer is, if you get something from your boss that should be obvious or your boss's boss, or even higher in that linear chain that goes to the top of your priorities based again, on your assessment of the situation, whatever you do, do not miss a deadline on work that comes from your direct chain of leadership. Okay, you can. It does happen. But we're suggesting when you get something like that that goes into the mix of the work that you and your team are doing and actually your team and your entire organization, if you're a senior manager, director or something like that.
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Absolutely, folks. And if you think that what you're being asked to do from this line leader is truly not possible, notify your boss immediately and ask for guidance. Don't just delay it. Don't just say, yep, absolutely, and stick it off to the side. It is now a priority for you to work on. And if you truly cannot work on it, you are obligated to say something. Something. You must say something to your boss. To your boss. Exactly. Or the person that's asked. Exactly.
- [11:36]
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You don't go back to the person three levels up who's not in your direct line of authority and say, hey, I'm sorry, we won't be able to do this. You certainly wouldn't do that without talking to your boss first. If you have gotten Guidance, just guidance as opposed to a demand or deliverable or something like that from your line leadership. Figure out what it means to your team and communicate it as quickly as you can. But if you've gotten input or information from your line leadership, think about what it means for you and your team and communicate it quickly to your team. If you're a senior manager above, give guidance to your managers below you and potentially their managers about what it means, how you want them to think about it, and be ready to change what they're doing to address it. I am continually shocked and at this point it's my fault. After 20 years of doing podcasts for millions of managers that people are still managers, still getting things from above them from the line leadership and sending it forward boss, skip boss, whatever, and saying FYI, that is not what you're supposed to do. When you get something from your line leadership, you should think about what it means for a team and you should interpret it when you forward it to them. If it's in an email, for instance, you know, interesting. It just occurred to me, I was thinking about emails and direct communications, but if you get an email, if you get a call from somebody who's not in your line leadership and you're wondering about how to prioritize it, you've got to talk to your boss immediately. It's the same as with an email. Don't forward an email to your team from somebody not in your line leadership and say, hey, I wanted you guys know this is what we're expected to do. You got to get validation from that. Unless in fact your boss is friends with that person and your boss has told you to expect it. That's a different authority. It all goes back to your you have to first satisfy your line, your chain of leadership or chain of authority, rather than anybody else who appears to outrank you in the organization or outrank
- [13:43]
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the the person asking you. Like let's say your boss asked you and then their boss's peer asked you to do something different. It doesn't matter whether your boss is two levels below the person who is a staff function asking you, your boss takes priority. It's not about the places people are sitting in the hierarchy, it's about the line and it's really about your boss. So always prioritize guidance demands or taskings from your line leadership. And folks, this is politics 101 and we have tons of podcasts on politics and we'll link to some of them at the bottom of this podcast so that you got. You can Connect. You can listen to some of those podcasts as well. But yeah, you want to. Going back to what I said earlier, have good relationships with these people. And what that means is prioritizing their stuff over other people's stuff.
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Yeah, simple. Which brings us to the part that's probably challenging for people, or at least challenges their assumptions that if somebody outranks me, I need to therefore prioritize that because they do nothing more than outrank me in the chain of leadership authority. And that our guidance is, as we said, deprioritize demands from staff organizations. So rather than seeing all requests, demands, or guidance from those who outrank you, outrank, quote, unquote Joey air quotes there as equal, we recommend you deprioritize requests from staff or nonline leaders above you.
- [15:20]
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Folks, the fact is, staff leaders who report to or work for someone more senior than you all too often assume that they speak for that leader two to three to four levels even above you. While in many cases it is unintentional, they believe mistakenly that because they report to someone who outranks you, they can task you the same way your boss can task you. But folks, that idea is patently false. It goes against the basic principles upon which your organization was built. If you were meant to do the things that they asked you to do over all else, you would be in their line of authority, and you're not.
- [16:11]
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And while while there are some exceptions to this, the vast majority of staff positions above you have no idea the level of workload you're dealing with. They have no idea the demands on your time. The modern organization has devolved to this place where everybody who outranks anybody else or reports to anybody who outranks anybody else has the authority to create taskings and demands on lower levels. That's not the way organizations are built. It's not the way they're supposed to be run.
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Yeah, and I would suggest that the fact that people believe that that's true is one of the reasons so many of us in the work world are finding the lower levels of our organizations feel compressed.
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Yes.
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It's like we can get nothing done. We, we. All we're doing is taking in work and we don't have the ability to say no to people we feel don't have the ability to delegate stuff to the floor that is no longer necessary. And it's just a compression.
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Yeah, and this guidance is designed to help you filter those requests. Now look, we're not implying here that the people in staff roles are power drunk. They're lording their power over you. They have deliverables, they have responsibilities. They have deadlines too. If you start thinking that way, that they're power drunk or something, you'll lose the ability to build relationships with them that may serve you and the organization. Rather, it's just best to assume that they're eager to do their jobs and do their jobs well, but have forgotten that you don't work for them. And they, despite their quote unquote higher role authority because they report to somebody who a VP for instance, and your boss is only a director, they have the ability to task those people beneath them. Beneath them. And folks, they don't. Okay? They just don't.
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Yeah, I mean, chances are, folks, if you're listening to this today and you didn't realize this difference, this, this need to fulfill your responsibilities and obligations to line leadership before staff leadership, chances are they have the same upbringing in an organization. A very ill trained, very
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them.
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Exactly. They learned the same lessons you did in their upbringing in the organization. They think it works that way. They're just mistaken.
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You know, there's one potential subtle little gray area that's not in our show notes here that I want to talk about. If you get a demand from an executive assistant of a vice president in your line of authority or your chain of authority or leadership, we can assure you that executive assistant speaks for his or her boss. That is a line request. Let's be clear about that. I don't want anybody leaving this podcast and thinking, oh, they're not actually in the narrow one to one to one to one up to the top chain of leadership. And so therefore my, my boss's boss's boss, EA can't task me, I can treat that like a staff request. No, that's not true. The vast majority of executive assistants or administrative assistants speak for their bosses. Now, as you get to know them better, you'll discover that sometimes they'll ask for stuff that you may not want to prioritize and you ought to probably talk to your boss. But please, we do not include assistance to people in your line of authority. Being a staff person, they're not. They are an extension of your boss or your boss's boss or their priorities,
- [19:48]
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quite literally are the priorities of the individual whom they serve. So they're. Yeah, they're, they're inseparable.
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Right now, actually, we. I just played golf with Ron Long, who's the CEO of Premier Truck Group, and I have a very good relationship with Lisa Campbell, his executive assistant. If Lisa Campbell called me or texted me or emailed me, I would immediately assume it was the same thing as ron Long, the CEO of a $4 billion company was asking me to do something that would be absolutely, in our case, even though we're not part of the organization, that's a line leader, an executive asking me to do something because it comes from Lisa. So that's a good example. Yeah.
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All right. So folks, all that to say the next time you get a demand or request or a tasking from a non line leader, just simply deprioritize it. Don't be afraid to make note of it and intend to get to it when you can. Do not be afraid to miss the deadline on that task. Don't be afraid that you might get in trouble by missing that deadline. Don't be afraid to temporarily forget about the tasking and wait for your boss to tell you that it's got to be done right away. Hopefully you can see that when your boss asks you to make this delayed issue happen, it's because the staff person has appealed to your boss for help. And when that happens, now it's a line leadership request, and thus it goes back into our recommendation. Previously, if it's a line leader request, now you prioritize it. But until it's a line leader request, there's no need to prioritize it.
- [21:32]
B
Yeah, we're not saying that you ignore it, put it away, and then complain and complain and complain. It is a tasking. It has some reasonableness to it. It might be a 2 on a 10 scale. It's not the same thing as your boss saying, I want this tomorrow. That's a 10 out of 10 or a 9 out of 10 and so on. But it gives you a way to start filtering the many requests that come down from above. It's just a way to think about things. We're not suggesting you basically say to the organization, everybody above you, I don't care. We're saying make intelligent decisions and think differentially rather than thinking that everything that comes from above you is priority one because it came from quote above, unquote. In fact, that last paragraph that you started with. So the next time you get a demand or request from an online leader, deprioritize it. That's the most important line in this podcast, I think.
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Purely Human says the best among us carry the torch of human connection and creativity. And at Manager tools, we've spent 20 years carrying that torch for managers everywhere, helping every manager become effective and every professional become productive. Now we're officially Purely human, certified because our guidance has always been and always will be purely human. Human. Check us out online at manager-tools.com
- [22:54]
B
so can I summarize?
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Yeah, do it. Wrap it up.
- [22:57]
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Okay, folks, stop assigning the same level of urgency to all demands and requests that come in from people. Quote above, you unquote in your organization. If the demand comes from a line leader, prioritize it. Respond quickly as best you can. But when staff orgs task you or demand responses or give you deadlines, deprioritize those. Be willing to get in trouble. And believe me, for the rest of your career, if you're a line manager, you have to be willing to decide what you're going to get in trouble for.
- [23:29]
A
Mark, so many ills I see in organizational life come from people engaging in activities designed to prevent them getting in trouble.
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Yes.
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Which is not effective. It's not an effective use of your time. I mean, you're gonna get in trouble no matter what, folks. It's gonna happen. Now you're a manager. That's why you're listening to this podcast. You will get in trouble. Just get in trouble for the right things.
- [23:53]
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It's the equivalent of mass at the point of decision for those who listen to executive tools as opposed to trash can fires. Right? So be willing to get in trouble for missing deadlines from staff organizations. You may get in a little bit of trouble when you're late, but the consequences of being late to a staff request have a lot less teeth than those from line leaders. Know the difference, consider politics, and respond differentially.
- [24:20]
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You bet.
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That's it. Simple. And I think it's elegant. I would think if I'm a new manager, I'm thinking, hey, I got another tool in my box here that can help me figure out what I'm going to do and what I'm not going to do, what I'm willing to get in trouble for.
- [24:34]
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Yeah, you can't do everything every day.
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No.
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All right, folks, thank you so much for joining us. We hope this helped you. Now help us help others and tell your friends. And of course, follow rate and review our podcast. And remember, five stars only, please. Ra.