Switzerland leading the Spanish in one distributed hierarchical group (7)
I believe the answer is:
echelon
'hierarchical group' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both groups as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'switzerland leading the spanish in one distributed' is the wordplay.
'switzerland' becomes 'ch' (short for Confoederatio Helvetica, its Latin name).
'leading' says to put letters next to each other.
'the spanish' becomes 'el' ('the' in Spanish).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'distributed' is an anagram indicator.
'ch'+'el'='chel'
'one' with letters rearranged gives 'eon'.
'chel' inserted inside 'eon' is 'ECHELON'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for echelon that I've seen before include "Grade or level" , "Body of troops arranged in a line" , "Level or rank in a group" , "position in society" , "Tier" .)