His calendar was a nightmare of one-on-ones, status updates, and decision bottlenecks. Every manager in the company had to wait for him to weigh in. Progress moved at the speed of his availability.
The problem wasn’t his work ethic. It was his span of control.
Here’s what most leaders miss: your job isn’t to make every decision. It’s to build a system where most decisions don’t need you.
The magic number for direct reports is typically five to seven. Not because you can’t handle more people, but because you can’t effectively empower more than that. Each manager needs coaching time, context, and the space to grow into their authority.
But here’s the critical part most management books skip: delegation without context is just dumping work on people.
When you tell someone what to do without explaining why it matters, you’re creating task-doers, not decision-makers. They’ll come back to you every time something doesn’t go according to plan because they don’t understand the priorities driving the work.
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The most efficient teams I’ve seen share three characteristics:
- Managers who know why, not just what. They understand the broader context and can make decisions aligned with company goals without constant approval.
- Clear decision rights at every level. Everyone knows which choices they own and which require escalation. No guessing games.
- A CEO who measures success by how often they’re not needed. If you’re the bottleneck, you’re not leading well.
That struggling CEO? He reorganized his structure, consolidated teams under three empowered VPs, and spent the next quarter teaching them context instead of giving them orders.
Six months later, his calendar had breathing room. More importantly, decisions were happening faster and closer to the customer.
Your span of control isn’t about how many people report to you. It’s about how many people you can genuinely develop while keeping the business moving forward.
If you’re drowning in direct reports, you’re not building leaders. You’re collecting dependencies.
