The junior developer has a better understanding of the technical architecture than the senior manager. The newest team member sees the client relationship issues that the veteran can’t see. The individual contributor has insights about market dynamics that the executive missed.
But they stay quiet.
I learned this lesson during a project crisis where our system was failing and nobody could figure out why. The senior architects were stumped. The project manager was panicking. Leadership was demanding answers.
Then Maria, a supposedly junior developer who’d been with us for three months, quietly said, “I think I know what’s happening. I saw this pattern at my last company.”
The room went silent. Here was someone at the bottom of the org chart suggesting she had the solution that senior people couldn’t find.
Twenty minutes later, we had our answer. Her insight saved the project.
Here’s what struck me: she’d been sitting on that knowledge for days, assuming it wasn’t her place to speak up. Because in many organizations, people confuse roles with ranks. They assume that seniority equals superior knowledge, that position equals better perspective, that hierarchy means some voices matter more than others.
This confusion costs organizations valuable insights and creates cultures where the best ideas don’t rise to the surface.
Roles are not ranks.
Understanding the difference can transform how teams operate.
Roles define function and responsibility: what you do, what you own, what expertise you bring. Ranks define hierarchy and authority: who reports to whom, who makes decisions, who has formal power.
The org chart doesn’t determine who has the best insights. A junior person can have the right expertise for a situation. A senior person can lack relevant knowledge for a specific challenge.