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Many companies promote and are proud of the fact that they have a very flat management hierarchy. This has both its good and bad sides. Clearly, flat should mean a shorter path to key influencers and decision makers. It can also mean more efficient.

On the negative side it masks reality, as organizational hierarchies will develop on their own and lack of their official documentation doesn’t serve the organization’s need for transparency. Flat hierarchies can also be used to hide ugly things, like favoritism and nepotism. Sometimes it is just a cheap trick to save money on salaries tied to managerial titles.

As of late I’ve been running into a series of situations where companies have taken a path that has allowed a leadership position to be structured in such a way that they have over 25 direct reports. In a managerial position where development is more a function of skills training for the team than individualized attention, I can see this being acceptable.

Heck, I’ve even seen a situation where one manager had over 100 direct reports. But when it comes to leadership roles, not just managerial responsibilities, it is a mortal sin to allow this kind of flat hierarchy to develop.

To begin with, we first have to differentiate between leadership roles and managerial roles. While there is clearly overlap between the two, a leader has a clearer mandate to develop the team. Being able to develop people requires that you spend time with them on an individual basis, not just being there for their annual review and giving them thumbs up or thumbs down.

How much time is required for team development depends upon the individuals involved and how ambitious your goals are, however this is an aspect that requires dedicated effort and cannot be allocated to time slots that are coincidentally free. Thus, as the number of direct reports increase, you have to make a distinct choice between spending less time developing the individuals in your team and spending less time executing against the mandate for your role. As ~nobody~ can afford to not properly execute their mandate, team development universally gets the short straw.

Additionally, while it may feel like melting butter in the pan of the leadership ego to have a role that makes you, if not indispensable, at least difficult to replace, you are failing in your responsibilities to your team and your organization by not specifically developing a set of individuals who are able to step into your role when you move on.

If your next role is within the same organization, having an onerous external search for your replacement will cost you and the organization additional pain and make it all that much more difficult for your transition to your new role. If your new role is with a new organization, you’ve just made it all that much more difficult to maintain a good relationship with your former employer.

Clearly, if you develop a team of individuals vying for your position upon your departure, there will be those who don’t get the role and will be at risk of leaving either the team or the organization in disappointment. However, that is not entirely a bad situation. A fresh circulation of personalities and ideas is one of the healthier things that can happen to an organization. It can also be a helpful signal for those who are insincere in their roles that they’ll need to kick things up a notch if they expect to go anywhere.

By maintaining a completely flat hierarchy you rob your team members of the learning opportunity that they will need to replace you upon your departure. You also weaken the organization’s range of opportunities when it is time to establish new divisions or business segments that could be potentially led from your team stars. This, in the end, reflects very badly upon your abilities as a leader, for one of a leader’s key responsibilities is to create new leaders.

If you are a leader, you owe it to your team, your organization and yourself to limit yourself to a number of direct reports in the single digit range.