In a company, chain of command means the order of authority level from a business owner or CEO to a front line employee. It is the structure where you report to your upper in an appropriate authority order. It is a very effective tool that helps keep the order in any size business. For example, if you are a bank teller and you have a scheduling issue, you should discuss it with your supervisor rather than with their upper up. Sometimes this chain can get broken and it can cause certain troubles at the work place. Maintaining healthy chain of command equilibrium can be a complicated responsibility that requires constant attention. There are no specific instructions on how to use this tool other than to just follow it. I believe that respect for such guidelines will help set the tone for healthy work flow.
Each employee in the chain of command is responsible for a different aspect of the business. For example, a bank manager is responsible to manage the assistant manager, the assistant manager supervises the teller manager and the teller manager supervises the tellers. If a teller has an issue and goes directly to the bank manager, they are not following the established chain of command; they undermine the authority of the direct supervisor which in this case is the teller manager. When this happens there might be many consequences for the employee like: they can gain a negative reputation in the work place, they can lose trust from the managers and other co-workers and it can also affect any future promotion within the company.
This can also have a negative impact in a manager or supervisor’s roll like: It can represent poor communication skills, poor leadership skill and it shows that the manager is clue less as to what’s truly going on in his department. After interviewing my supervisor and manager they both agreed that this is a very important issue in the work place, they said from their