Levels of management and future vision

Executives are required to have vision. How much vision, and by that I mean how far ahead you look, depends on where you are in the corporate food chain. I'll be examining all these roles in detail in further posts.

CEO - 20 year vision

A good CEO looks ahead to see where the Company needs to be in 20 years. He/she then hires, fires and strategises to ensure the Company can get there.

General Manager - 10 yearvision

Manager - 5 year vision

Line manager - 1 year vision

Staff, workers, people in the company
The members of a company who aren't in management don't really have to look. a long way into the future. At least not the company's future. And why should they? They need to get on with the job. That job is dictated by the company for sure; obviously the company is in business for a reason and the staff need to make, deliver, provide service or whatever is required to meet that reason.

The future they are concerned with is their daily, weekly monthly output. How does this differ from the next level of management and why? Well imagine if you not only had to make the shoes, plan what shoes to make next year, plan what market, to expand into next year; the year after. five years after that. plan what other products to expand with, tool up to make those products. Hire and fire people as part of expansion or contraction. Getting the picture?

It sort of sounds like a small business owner to me, and that's an awful lot of work. Some people are better at making, some at planning, some at looking ahead. 5, 10, 20 years. Rarely someone can look even further ahead.