Approaching the design of managerial positions

When you see an organization with a lot of managerial positions having very narrow spans of control (2-4 direct reports), it is usually a result of trying to satisfy good performers (or realize some political agenda) by promoting them to managers. This practice may trigger seriously dangerous repercussions including: higher operational costs (more managerial positions means more high-salaried individuals), more vertical lines of communication (meaning more approvals, more filters for information going up leading to its distortion, and slower transfer of information resulting in slower decision-making), further process fragmentation (the true end-to-end process owner is more detached from operations with each hierarchy layer being added), and watering down the true management culture (because manager title stands for status rather than a set of managerial competencies). Design of managerial positions must be based on a careful consideration of structure parameters of organizational differentiation and integration. Everything else may jeopardize organizational development in the long run.