When President John F. Kennedy visited the NASA space center in 1962, he encountered a janitor sweeping a floor and asked him what he was doing. The custodian replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”

Every single person in a business plays a critical role in achieving the business’s vision and mission, whether they know it or not. Knowing your role — and helping each team member understand theirs — is a fundamental part of leadership. For a business to succeed, each and every employee must understand the part they play and how their role helps the organization achieve its overall goals.

No Such Thing as a Small Role

When a forward scores a goal in football, he gets all the glory.

But before the forward kicked the ball in the net, his own goalie blocked a shot from the opposing team, a defender recovered the ball and fed it to a midfielder who finally advanced it to the scoring forward.

Similarly, when ego-driven salespeople smash their sales targets, it’s easy for them to feel like the company is lucky to have them. But an IT tech maintains the CRM system they rely on to sell, the marketing department develops the buyer personas they use to develop leads and an administrative assistant makes sure their documentation is filed and organized.

From the janitor to the CEO, each employee’s work influences the work of others. When employees know their individual roles and understand how their work fits into the larger picture, they can fully respect the work of others and appreciate that no one can succeed on their own.

Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Leadership

In businesses with healthy corporate cultures, everyone knows their purpose and role, and they are all moving in the same direction toward a shared goal. In the top-down management structure, only the first part is true — everyone knows their role, but they might not understand why it matters.

The military is the ultimate example of top-down management. A general gives an order to a lieutenant-general, who gives an order to a major-general, who gives an order to a brigadier and so on. Everyone is operating on a need-to-know basis, and by the time the order filters down to the troops on the ground, they might not even know what country they’re going to, only to get on certain plane at a certain time.

Legendary submarine commander David Marquet broke the military mould by instituting a bottom-up management style. In the bottom-up model, everyone is responsible for thinking and working toward the big-picture goal. Instead of ordering subordinates to turn at such a rate and such as speed, he told them where he wanted to go and empowered them to determine how to get there. In his submarine, every crew member was a leader.

For salespeople, there is often a disconnect between what they do and what they think they do. Even the best employees can not act with a sense of purpose if they don’t understand where their role fits into the bigger picture. The best way for a company leader to contribute to the business’s success is to make sure each and every employee understands the company’s long-term goals, and how their individual contribution is critical to meeting those goals.