The Big Reason Employees Need Bosses

BusinessNews Daily:

It turns out that equality may not be the best policy … at least when it comes to work. That’s because a new study has found that teams with a built-in hierarchy outperformed groups where each person held an equal amount of power.

The study found that groups with an equal distribution of power among all workers experienced more conflict, reduced differentiation in roles and less coordination and integration within the group. This is because, without a hierarchy of power, the researchers found that group members jostle for power amongst each other. This occurs thanks to what the researchers called the need for a natural pecking order within groups

“We found that a clear hierarchy, division of labor and patterns of deference reduce conflict, facilitate coordination and ultimately improve group productivity (in groups with hierarchies),” said Adam Galinsky, professor of ethics and decision in management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a researcher on the study. “On the other hand, when there are too many leaders or too few followers, group performance suffers.”

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