Image Courtesy: Choicesdomatter.org

People usually are trained for hierarchy and do not tread beyond theirs, when it comes to decisions. The reasoning here is to ascertain safety in daily work. A similar extension applies to the IT industry as well.

There exists a well-defined structure in most software companies that allows people to expand vertically in their careers. It's generally addressed as climbing up the corporate ladder and flows as follows:

Now I think this is a perfectly valid structure as it allows for clear delegation of roles and responsibilities. It also ensures individuals have ample scope to display the apt team-building and leadership skills at each level as required before moving on to the next one.

But as is the case for a lot of concepts, there exists a counter-point to this one as well. Here, critics often say that a formal structure is a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy, complicates work and encourage flat hierarchies instead. These are wherein one can work anywhere in the above chain but without the "title". Additionally they say leadership is not in the title but more so in actions.

I politely disagree with the counter-point. My oft used example: would we people consider, listen eagerly and be influenced by the opinions of executive leaders like Mark Zuckerburg, Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk, Susan Wojcicki, Padmasree Warrior, Mira Murati if they all were anything else?

Most likely a big No.

On the other hand, we would hardly be aware of the entry-level employees in each of the above leaders's companies let alone know and be influenced by their opinion.

However, my post is not to berate anyone but outline how titles matter. They're vital to let people know who are the decision makers in a formal organisational structure but more importantly why they are so. While with great power comes great responsibility but it gives an individual tremendous influence as well.

This leads me to the interesting question as headlined:

In the Software industry - do titles matter?