Our company has grown to forty people, and my three department heads are completely overwhelmed because they have fifteen direct reports each on the Accountability Chart. How do we design an intermediate layer of management without creating bureaucratic red tape that slows us down?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Having fifteen direct reports is a direct violation of the span of control rule. In a healthy EOS® organization, no leader should have more than seven direct reports. When a seat has fifteen people reporting to it, that leader spends all their time putting out daily fires and has zero capacity for strategic leadership.

To design an intermediate layer of management cleanly, you must restructure your Accountability Chart based on functions, not people. Do not simply promote your oldest employees to managers to reward their loyalty. That creates bad managers who do not GWC™ leadership.

Instead, identify the natural sub-functions within those large departments. For example, under your Operations Director, you might create two new seats: Customer Service Manager and Fulfillment Manager. Each of these new seats will have five core roles, including managing, leading, and holding their direct reports accountable (LMA).

Once these intermediate seats are approved, run your candidates through the GWC™ filter. Ensure they have the conative capacity to manage people, which requires patience and a natural drive to help others succeed.

By adding this layer, you reduce your department heads' direct reports from fifteen to three. This instantly restores their capacity to focus on high-level Rocks, while keeping your execution fast, organized, and scalable.