Hierarchical Team

A hierarchical team is a type of team organization structure in which the team is divided into hierarchies and there are many middle management (Mohr 1982). There is an overall manager of the team who is place at the top of the hierarchy. This manager is responsible for leading or controlling the managers in each hierarchy to make sure that the team’s objectives are met as well as the overall objectives of the organization. The manager works with the middle managers to make sure that the team is ran smoothly and that the organizational goals are being achieved by the team.
There is a manager in each hierarchy who is called a middle manager who is in charge of their own department. This helps the department to be independent and therefore is able to deal with their own problems in their department without bothering what the other departments are doing. The manager who is in charge of this department is leads the department towards achieving team goals (Heckscher and Donnellon 1994). The manager is responsible of the whole department at large and in making sure that the team’s objectives are being achieved as well as the overall objectives of the organization.
The middle managers communicate their progress to the overall team manager who is able to evaluate performance and decide if the team is achieving the intended objectives as well as the overall objectives of the organization. Because in hierarchical teams the team is divided into hierarchies (Robbins and Judge 2007), the team is able to run smoothly because each department has its own jobs which are allocated to it and the department are able to undertake their jobs independently.

This helps in making sure that the department or rather the hierarchy undertakes their work perfectly as they are responsible for themselves and can not blame any other department or hierarchy in case they do not deliver. This makes each department to work hard to achieve their target so as not to be blamed in case the team fails to achieve the intended objectives as well as organizational objectives. The team members are able to interact as they work and therefore (Thareja 2007), are able to combine their skills and achieve the organizational goals easily. The structure below shows how a hierarchical team looks like.
A team in an organization is very important as it helps the people in an organization to work as team in order to achieve organizational goals. People are also able to work in a friendly environment and therefore, they are able to create a good working environment as well as a more relaxed environment. When people work when they are relaxed, they are able to deliver better than those people who work under any tension (Thareja 2007). Therefore, people in the hierarchical team are able to deliver well than those people that are working individually because; the people in the hierarchical team are able to interact as they perform their duties.
Advantages of hierarchical team
1.Division of work- each hierarchy within the hierarchical team is allocated certain jobs to undertake, therefore, they are able to undertake the tasks (Lim and Sambrook 2010) because that is what they are good at and therefore are able to deliver the best.
2.Flexibility- within a team, there are people who are able to perform more than one tasks. Therefore, in case someone is absent in a department, another person is able to perform their duties and therefore, work is able to continue smoothly without much problem.
3.The hierarchies within the team are able to share ideas. This will help in making sure that the organizational goals are met.
4.Because the departments are independent, they are able to make their own decisions which is best for them and which will help them achieve the team’s goals as well as organizational goals.
5.Even though the whole hierarchy is a team, each department is allocated their particular job, makes the department to feel the ownership of a success (Pugh 1990). For example, if a department in a team is allocated the work of advertisement, the hierarchy will feel good if there is an increased sale.
6.Working as a team even though in a hierarchy boosts the morale of the workers. This is because, they are able to interact as they work, and the work is shared amongst the hierarchies.
7.Because the team is organized in an hierarchical manner, leadership is shared in that, a middle manager is allocated for each department (Thareja 2007), this helps in smooth running of the team and that, not just one person who is responsible for the team but several people according to the number of hierarchies in that team.
8.The team is able to deliver better products because they are comprised of a mixture of people with different talents and therefore, these talents can be used to achieve organizational goals.
Disadvantages
1.Work can be divided unfairly amongst the departments. The work that the whole team is supposed to undertake may be divided unfairly amongst the departments or the hierarchies (Amaral and Uzzi 2007). This therefore means that some hierarchies or departments may be allocated more jobs than the others thus making them work more than the other departments.
2.Arguments amongst the departments may rise. In case the team’s objectives are not met, the departments may start blaming one another and thus result to arguments and even destroyed relationships in the organization.
3.Because each department is able to make their own decision, coordination of that team may be difficult as the departments work independently.
4.Because the hierarchical team focus more on working as a team rather than an individual, some talents and skills of some workers may become stagnant because they may not be needed or used in the team (Burns and Stalker 1961).
5.Poor communication because, communication is vertical in that, the top manager in the hierarchy has to communicate through the hierarchies while the manager at the bottom of the hierarchy has to reach the top manager vertically.
6.If one department fails to perform its tasks, it may lead to the failure of the whole team in that the whole team may not be able to achieve its goals.