Best way to treat someone is like a colleague
Why do social Hierarchy exist?
Social hierarchy is something exist for the natural purpose of command. It is not just a structure which occurs in human interaction. If you look at any group of animals, you will notice a hierarchy. A group of elephants, a pack of wolves, a family of rabbits. Generally, the ones who are more powerful, and more capable of survival with unique advantage are at the top. In the case of elephants, that would be the mature elephant with a lot of memory. And you can see the similarity between the social hierarchy of humans. Imagine an army without a hierarchy of command. There would be utter chaos when they try to perform a simple command. Everyone will run around everywhere and argue with everyone about whom the actual work should perform. This doesn't happen in armies as there is a command.
What comes with status is power.
What comes with money is leverage. What comes with status is power. More you have people under your command more you will have power. The money, the power and leverage they have amazing nature of working as a positive feedback loop. Where there is more power that is where more money tends to accumulate. Hence your boss will be paid more as many are working under his name. Owners are paid most as they have leverage with capital, and human resources. This is very good structure which can produce "Miracles" for the capitalist society. However, when it comes to ethical and more futuristic society this would no longer be valid as there are problems.
Social Hierarchy creates problems of abuse.
When someone is under someone else's command there would be a rule saying "Follow orders". As these orders are in line of the ethical standards this is fine. But what happens naturally is the greed of the people will take over when they climb the ladder of hierarchy. At least some of them will try to abuse the power. They would command to do things to be done which only benefit their personal gains, let it be money, more social gains. The employees would be unable to refuse their commands, unless they are willing to rebel against the system. Most likely they will be treated as outlaws by the system when they do that. So, the ethics where the hierarchy of command exist matters. As a person with certain amount of power in any social construct, we should ask ourselves, am I abusing power? How can I best treat some other person under my command?
The best way to treat someone is like a colleague.
When you consider this the best way seems to treat the other person as your colleague. This is true for both the boss and the employee. From the perspective of the boss, if you do not treat employees under your command as colleagues, you restrict their behavior. You might blunt their creativity and ability to come up with solutions. You might accumulate a power and status which you might abuse along the way, even without knowing. It might feel good for a decade, but not very good when you lose that power, which inevitably would happen to you. As every system replace their players from time to time.
From the perspective of the employee, if you cannot treat your boss like a colleague, you would be giving an unnecessary power over yourself to them. And even if you do not know this will restrict your personal growth as a person. You will forget to realize when unclothed everyone is only a slightly advantaged Monkey. And by design there is no difference between you and anyone who has climbed the social hierarchical ladder. Maybe you should become a boss one day and learn to treat your team members as collogues which is the best way to treat someone without jeopardizing your or their dignity. How about starting from the family?
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