HIERARCHY

The word hierarchy means any system of person or things ranked one above another.

Hierarchy can be seen in many areas. One that comes to mind would be in a company. Others include a team, a community, a parliament, at university, your own family, etc. Taking a company called Coles as a general example, viewing this as a pyramid with the boss or owner on the top on this pyramid, then branching down to departments in the management team with the managers on top, this may include regional managers, under this, could be store managers, then department manages of services, grocery, deli, fresh produce, etc. Down on the bottom of this pyramid lays the normal workers that are employed by the store.

Hierarchy in relation to a group collaboration can be very important. A leader or project manager should be there to keep the team on course and order things to do and be done by a certain time. Besides that, the team leader is also needed for many decisions which cannot be decided between the group members. When there is no hierarchy, which is known as a planar structure which could lead to decisions being unsolved, conflict, lack of teamwork, unorganised team, etc. The outcome would be much more perfect if there was hierarchy in the group.

References:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hierarchy