Transitions at Work

31st May 2007

Is it better to start my career as a line manager or in a staff position?

By D. Quinn Mills

Is it better for a person to start his or her career as a line manager or as a staff manager?

First, some definitions: organizations distinguish between types of managerial positions—between line and staff positions. Line positions are those involved in the direct operations of the business. Staff positions support the line. Manufacturing, shipping and sales are line functions. Personnel management, logistics, purchasing, and strategic planning are staff functions. A manufacturing manager or a sales manager is a line manager; a personnel manager or a purchasing manager or a manager of a strategic planning department is a staff manager.

In a line role a person is likely to feel much more accountable than in a staff role, because a line manager’s work directly impacts the company’s profitability (its bottom line). A staff role, however, provides a deep understanding of the fundamentals of the company’s business. Staff experience can provide a great deal of credibility with colleagues when a manager switches from a staff role to a line role. So important are both line and staff roles in a large organization that it’s very difficult to be an effective leader without having experienced both.

To repeat our opening question, then: Is it better for a person to start his or her career as a line manager or as a staff manager?

Each has its advantages.

Starting in the line

Line positions often provide invaluable learning of a type not easily obtained in business school or even in staff positions. A line manger learns how to respond to customers when they are pressuring him; how to energize employees who aren’t motivated; what it feels like to have an integral role in actually making something that satisfies a tangible customer need; and what to do first (that is, how to prioritize your actions) when something goes wrong and needs immediate attention. Experiences like these add to the broad character of a person and fit her for top leadership; top leaders looking for successors seek people who have line experience, recognizing its importance.

Ordinarily, staff positions alone will not take one to the top of an organization. There are exceptions, but they are few and notable. Usually, the line manager who attracted new customers and whose team set sales records is looked at as an eventual candidate for the top job, not the vice president for corporate strategy, or the vice president of Human Resources or the head of the Legal Department –– all three of whom are high-level staffers.

Yet there is no better place to learn about an organization than from a key staff position. There a person has the responsibility of learning how things are done; of determining the major trends in the marketplace and among competitors; or deciding courses of action for the organization at large. In a sense it is the staff person who decides what to do; the line manager who carries out the plan.

Staff positions can place a young manager into a position of high impact quickly, providing frequent interaction with top management and fast learning about the company as a whole. These are important advantages.

Staff roles and recognition

But staff managers don’t get to implement their own suggestions; they don’t get to see the direct results of their own work; they get little recognition (it’s the manufacturing manager who turns out the new products with good quality and reasonable costs and the sales manager who hits new sales targets who receive the recognition and financial reward); and worst of all, a staff manager may get confined in that role and never be allowed to enter a line position.

In general, the longer a person stays in a staff role, the harder it is to move into a line role (or back into a line role, if he’s been there before). This may not be due to an actual deficit in the person’s skills, but due to the organization’s perception of her skills as limited to those of a staffer.

Holding a series of line positions is usually absolutely necessary for a person to climb the promotion ladder toward the top of an organization. Hence, it generally makes more sense to start a career in a line position and look for an opportunity to spend a few years in a staff position at some time in your career. But there are times when the only job available in the company you want to work for is in a staff position. Then it makes sense to take the staff position and look for an opportunity to move into the line as soon as possible.

D. Quinn Mills is the Alfred J. Weatherhead Jr. Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He consults with major corporations and teaches at Harvard on subjects of leadership, strategy, and financial investments. For more of his views on line vs. staff management, please click here.

For information on MindEdge’s online self-paced “Managing in the Modern Organization” course, please click here.

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