Managing Too Many People Is a Trap
How to Effectively Progress on the Management Track
Have you doubled your team size during the last months? You may have grown your reports from 7 to 14 individuals. “Congratulations”, one might think. But hold on a moment.
I have been in that situation a few times and understand the great feeling and its consequences. I have helped several fast-paced startups and scale-ups rapidly grow beyond unicorn status. Although I really enjoy scaling teams and contributing to organizational hyper-growth, taking on too many direct reports can be a major trap. Let me explain why.
Expanding Your Team Feels Like Success
Many managers believe that team growth is always positive and indicates success, but this needs to be clarified. Doubling your team size without significantly increasing your impact cannot be considered a success.
Expanding one’s team feels great and is sometimes essential due to organizational needs, project demands, or strategic goals. As a manager, being able to grow your team is a crucial skill for both your success and the success of your organization. However, it’s important to remember that simply increasing headcount is not a measure of success.
A team’s success, and by extension, its manager, is intrinsically linked to their impact on the organization. Since increasing your team incurs costs, managers must maximize efficiency by achieving a significant impact with a minimal workforce without burning out their people. Ultimately, making an impact and delivering business value is all that matters.
The Dangers of Managing Too Many People
As a manager, finding yourself with overwhelming direct reports can feel like navigating a labyrinth of complexities. While it may seem like a sign of professional growth or responsibility, the reality is often quite different.
Here are five common pitfalls when managing too many people directly:
Lack of Individualized Attention: Managing a large team can make it difficult for an engineering manager to provide individualized support, guidance, and feedback to each team member.
Micromanagement Tendencies: In an attempt to maintain control over a large team, managers may resort to micromanagement, which can demotivate team members.
Loss of Strategic Focus: Overburdened managers may struggle to allocate resources effectively, leading to a loss of focus on strategic goals.
Decreased Morale and Engagement: Lack of attention or recognition from a manager can decrease team members’ morale, engagement, and job satisfaction.
Burnout and Stress: Managing a large team can be mentally and emotionally taxing for managers, leading to increased stress, burnout, and potential health issues if not managed effectively.
I know from experience that too many direct reports can lead to a lack of attention and focus. It can have negative consequences, such as demoralizing your team and putting more pressure on yourself. Additionally, it can lead to reduced job satisfaction and even burnout if not addressed promptly.
Ultimately, reflect on this question: Do you want to be a well-rounded Engineering Manager or just a People Manager? If you have a solid technical background, you probably don’t like to be an engineering manager who only does people management.
The Perverse Incentives of Managing Oversized Teams
I have heard stories about managers working in Big Tech who had to increase the size of their teams, even if it was unnecessary, to meet annual goals and prepare their promotion cases. Sometimes, that often leads to laying off a significant portion of their team the following year.
In most companies, managing a large team is usually rewarded somehow. Naive people think they might climb the management ladder by just managing more people. Still, the reality is that getting promoted is an art that depends on many other factors. On the contrary, managing a big team without a succession plan could be a significant blocker for your promotion. Think about it: Who will handle such a large group of reports if you’re promoted?
If you aspire to move from a manager position to a director or higher level, you will likely be asked about the largest team you have managed during an interview. You must demonstrate that you have managed a team large enough for the position to be offered the job. That’s nonsense; managing a team of 14 individual contributors does not necessarily prepare you any better for managing managers than managing a team of 7 individual contributors. It requires a different skill set, but that’s a topic for another article.
How to Effectively Progress As a Manager
According to Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel and author of High Output Management, a manager’s output is the sum of their organization’s output and the output of the neighboring organizations they influence.
If you can manage your “organization” efficiently, then you have the potential to make a significant impact on the individuals and teams that you oversee. Therefore, it is true that the larger your organization is, the more substantial the potential impact you can make if appropriately managed. Similarly, the more you can influence other “organizations,” such as other engineering teams, the more significant the impact you can have.
The output of a manager is the output of the organizational units under his or her supervision or influence.
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management
There are many ways you could influence other teams and people. For example, you can write an engineering strategy for your team and could end up also influencing other teams. If most of the teams or, even better, the whole engineering unit implements that strategy, the potential impact you could make will be massive.
When it comes to managing a team, there is a limit to the number of people you can effectively oversee. The more autonomous they are, the more you can handle. However, once you reach a certain number of direct reports, your effectiveness as a manager decreases significantly. That’s why it’s crucial to know how to say no if you’re offered to manage more people than you can effectively manage.
Progressing on the management track is about managing different layers of people, not just more people.
Ultimately, focus on taking more scope and responsibility for increasingly complex aspects of the organization rather than just managing more people. Your success as a leader also depends on your ability to influence, inspire, and lead individuals at all levels of the organization.
Concluding Thoughts
While it may be necessary to temporarily manage a larger team to support your organization’s growth, managers should be careful when taking on too many reports.
If you have never done it, stretching yourself and seeing how many people you can manage effectively can be an excellent exercise. Still, it’s important to remember that managing too many people for extended periods can harm you, your team, and your organization.
Avoid focusing solely on short-term success at your organization instead of thinking strategically and aiming for a sustainable long-term career. Doing so will make you a more effective leader and create a broader impact on your team members and organization. Plus, you will likely be happier in the long term!
What is the maximum number of people you can directly manage effectively, and how do you achieve it? Let me know your thoughts.