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by Liz Walter

Zoologists tell us that if you watch a group of chickens, you can place them in order of importance because birds with a high status peck those with a lower status. While humans don’t peck or – usually at any rate – physically harm one another to demonstrate power, we do use the phrase pecking order to talk about social hierarchy, in other words how important one person is in relation to others.

One of the most obvious contexts where we might need to talk about this is at work. Senior jobs are for higher-paid, more experienced staff, while junior jobs are lower status, often for newer employees. People sometimes refer to colleagues with more senior jobs as their superiors:

All the senior managers were called to the meeting.

She had a very junior role in the sales department.

I’ll have to check that with one of my superiors.

In the armed forces, the levels of roles are called ranks, with people at or near the top often described as high-ranking. People below them may be called their subordinates:

He rose to the rank of general.

The decision was criticized by several high-ranking officers.

She was accused of forcing her subordinates to sign false statements.

A nice way of talking about positions in a company or other organization is to use the image of rungs on a ladder (the horizontal parts that you step on to climb):

She started on the bottom rung and rose to be managing editor of the magazine.

He’s a doctor, currently working at a grade which is one rung below consultant.

When we call someone a linchpin (sometimes spelled lynchpin), we mean that they are the most important member of a group or organization, and that without them the other members wouldn’t be able to carry out their own roles. On the other hand, someone who is just a cog in the machine plays a role that is necessary but which makes them feel unimportant:

For more than forty years, he was the linchpin of a small opera company.

I was fed up with spending my working life as a cog in the machine.

There are several informal ways of describing important people in an organization. The big boys are very important people in an organization or an area of activity while the top dog is the most senior person:

This investment helped them join the big boys in banking.

He was top dog at Columbia Records.

Words for other important people include big shot, big cheese, big wheel, and big gun. These words are sometimes used in a jokey or mocking way:

That shy schoolgirl is now a big shot in a city law firm.

We met with some big guns in the oil industry.

If we say that someone is a big fish in a small pond, we mean that they are important but only in a small organization:

He turned down a job in LA, preferring to remain a big fish in a small pond.

In my next post, I’ll look at some words for describing someone’s importance more generally.