The Great Flattening
97% of Managers Are Doing Two Jobs. Here's Why They're Burning Out.
New Gallup research reveals the hidden capacity threshold that's crushing middle management - and why the efficiency playbook is making it worse.
There's a new Gallup survey making the rounds, and if you're a manager, it probably explains why you've been feeling like you're drowning.
The average manager now oversees 12.1 direct reports. That's up from 10.9 last year, and nearly 50% higher than pre-pandemic levels, when the number was around 8.
But here's the stat that stopped me: 97% of managers report having individual contributor responsibilities in addition to leading others. They're not just managing - they're also doing the work.
They're calling it "The Great Flattening." Companies like Amazon, Meta, Google, and Walmart are gutting their middle management ranks in the name of efficiency. And the managers who survive? They inherit the load.
But the Gallup data tells a more complicated story than "flattening = bad." And that's where it gets interesting.
The 40% Threshold
According to Gallup's research on span of control, the median team size is actually still around 5-6 people. The 12.1 average is being pulled up by a minority of very large teams - 13% of managers now have 25 or more direct reports.
Managers who spend less than 40% of their time on individual contributor work maintain higher engagement regardless of team size. They can manage 12 people, even 20, and still stay engaged. But managers who exceed that 40% threshold? Their engagement drops. And it gets worse as their team size increases.
This is a capacity threshold hiding in plain sight.
When you're spending more than 40% of your time doing non-management work, you don't have the bandwidth to actually manage. You're spread too thin. And the bigger your team gets, the more that gap hurts you. This is exactly what we mean by Capacity Intelligence™ - the ability to recognize these thresholds before they break you.
Larger Teams Can Work - With the Right Conditions
Gallup isn't saying flattening is inherently bad. They're saying it can work, but only if four conditions are met:
The Four Conditions for Success
The team is already engaged
You can't widen spans of control and fix engagement problems simultaneously.
Managers spend less than 40% of their time on IC work
This is the threshold. Cross it, and everything else becomes harder.
Managers have the right talent for the role
Managing large teams requires different skills than managing small ones.
Managers give employees meaningful feedback weekly
Not annual reviews. Weekly conversations that matter.
When those conditions exist, teams of 12 or more can thrive. When they don't, "short-term savings may undermine the daily manager-employee relationships that support long-term results."
This is the part no one's talking about. The Great Flattening isn't failing because larger teams don't work. It's failing because organizations are widening spans of control without putting the right conditions in place.
They're increasing the load without adjusting the capacity. If you're experiencing this mismatch, you may already be showing signs of burnout without realizing it.
"Our Meetings Became Transactional"
One middle manager, Yvonne Lee-Hawkins, told Business Insider what happened when she went from zero to 21 direct reports:
"Our meetings became transactional because we only had time to discuss the most urgent issues. We no longer had time to get to know each other, ask questions, seek advice, or work on career development."
She eventually quit due to burnout.
When someone says their meetings have become "transactional," they're not describing a calendar problem. They're describing a capacity collapse.
Gallup found that managers who have at least one meaningful conversation with each employee per week have substantially better outcomes - regardless of team size. But that requires bandwidth. When you're doing two jobs and managing 21 people, you don't have it.
The relationship equity that makes teams resilient? Gone. The developmental conversations that help people grow? Eliminated. The buffer that allows you to think before you react? Nonexistent.
This is what it looks like to operate in the 🟡Yellow Zone indefinitely - functional enough to keep going, but without the reserves to actually lead. And many managers don't recognize they've crossed into the 🔴Red Zone until they're already making decisions they'll regret.
The Burnout Crisis Nobody's Measuring Right
The Flattening Fallacy
Here's what the efficiency consultants won't tell you: flattening doesn't eliminate work. It redistributes it.
When you remove a layer of management, the coordination, communication, and decision-making that layer handled doesn't disappear. It gets absorbed by whoever remains. Usually by people who were already past their 40% threshold.
"When organizations widen spans of control without reducing managers' individual workloads, they are not just redrawing the organizational chart - they risk weakening day-to-day performance management by compromising their managers' own performance."
The organizations doing this well are asking the right questions first. The ones doing it poorly are just cutting headcount and hoping it works out.
Understanding the hidden economics of workplace capacity helps explain why this matters so much - and why the short-term savings rarely materialize into long-term gains.
This Is a Capacity Problem
The Gallup data confirms something I've believed for a long time: the question isn't how many people you manage. It's whether you have the capacity to manage them.
The 40% threshold isn't arbitrary. It's the point at which your bandwidth for actual leadership runs out. Beyond that, you're in triage mode - handling what's urgent, surviving the day, cutting everything else.
What Is Capacity Intelligence™?
Capacity Intelligence™ is the ability to accurately assess where you are and match your approach to your actual available resources - not the resources you wish you had.
It's the meta-skill that determines whether every other skill you have is actually accessible when you need it.
The managers who burn out aren't the ones with large teams. They're the ones operating as if they have capacity they don't have. They're the ones past the 40% line, trying to manage 15 people while also doing a full IC workload, wondering why they can't keep up.
This is why The Zones Framework™ matters. When you're in the 🟢Green Zone, you have the cognitive resources to think strategically, have meaningful conversations, and actually develop your people. When you're constantly operating in 🟡Yellow Zone or worse, you're just surviving.
The Question No One's Asking
When Mark Zuckerberg said "flatter is better" to justify cutting middle management at Meta, I wanted to ask: better for whom?
Gallup's answer is nuanced: flatter can be better - if you invest in the conditions that make it work. If you ensure managers have the talent, the time, and the support to actually lead.
But if you're just widening spans of control to cut costs? You're not making the organization more efficient. You're just moving the inefficiency onto your managers' shoulders and calling it a strategy.
The Real Question
The Great Flattening isn't going away. The question is whether your organization will do it intelligently - or whether you'll be the one absorbing the load until you can't anymore.
The old playbook says to optimize your way through it. Work smarter. Delegate better. Prove you can handle it.
The capacity-aware playbook says something different: know your threshold. Recognize when you've crossed it. And stop pretending you can operate above 40% indefinitely without something breaking.
This is Operationalized Self-Awareness™ in action - turning recognition of your state into actual behavioral change, rather than pushing through until you crash.
What This Means for You
Because the managers who survive the Great Flattening won't be the ones who worked hardest. They'll be the ones who understood their capacity - and managed it as deliberately as they managed their teams.
If You're a Manager
- Track your IC vs. management time ratio. If you're above 40% on IC work, something has to give.
- Pay attention to when your meetings become transactional. That's a warning sign.
- One meaningful conversation per direct report per week is the minimum viable relationship.
- Your engagement predicts your team's engagement. Your capacity determines your engagement.
If You're a Leader
- Flattening can work - but only with the right conditions in place.
- Cutting middle management without reducing IC load just redistributes the problem.
- The short-term savings from restructuring rarely account for the long-term cost of manager burnout.
- The 40% threshold is real. Build your org design around it.
For a deeper dive into matching your tools and approaches to your actual available resources, explore our guide to stress mastery and work-life balance.
Ready to Build Your Capacity Intelligence™?
Stop managing from depletion. Learn to recognize your zones, protect your threshold, and lead from a place of actual capacity.
