Top-down

How it is used

Often contrasted with bottom-up, where ideas come from employees. People talk about a top-down approach, top-down decision-making or a top-down culture. It can sound negative, but it is often useful in a crisis.

Example sentences

1. The new targets were set in a top-down way, so many store managers felt ignored.

2. We combined top-down goals with bottom-up ideas from each team.

Common collocations

• top-down approach
• top-down decision-making
• top-down management
• top-down and bottom-up

Related terms

• decision-makingThe process of choosing between different options, including collecting information, weighing risks and benefits, and agreeing who makes the final choice.
• hierarchyA system in which the people in an organisation are arranged in levels, with each level having more authority than the one below it.
• chain of commandThe official line of authority in an organisation, showing who gives instructions to whom and the order in which decisions and problems move up and down.
• consensusGeneral agreement among all or most members of a group, reached through discussion, so that people can support a decision even if it was not their first choice.
• alignmentA state in which teams, goals and actions support the same strategy and priorities, so that different parts of an organisation work in the same direction.

More terms: Decision Making

• prioritize
• trade-off
• escalate
• sign off
• risk assessment
• data-driven
• gut feeling