1.3 Levels of Management

The levels of management can be classified in three broad categories:

Top Level of Management

Middle Management

First Line Managers

Top Level of Management

These are the managers who are responsible for making long term decisions for the organization.

It consists of board of directors, chief executive or managing director.

The top management is the ultimate source of authority and it manages goals and policies for an enterprise.

It devotes more time on planning and coordinating functions.

1.3 Levels of Management

Middle Level of Management

Middle management implements policies and plans of top managers as well as supervise the work of first line managers.

The branch managers and departmental managers constitute middle level. They are responsible to the top management for the functioning of their department.

They devote more time to organizational and directional functions.

In small organization, there is only one layer of middle level of management but in big enterprises, there may be senior and junior middle level management.

Middle managers have titles such as faculty deans, plant managers, project leaders and divisional managers.

Low level or First Line Managers

They are at the lowest level of management.

They are often known as supervisors.

Their works involve making short term decisions and supervising the daily tasks of non-managerial employees who are directly involved with production or servicing.

Examples of titles of first line managers are office managers, shift managers and team leaders.