How to Thrive in the Era of the ‘Supermanager’. As organizations eliminate layers of middle management, supermanagers are becoming the norm. Here’s what the shift means for burnout, productivity, and leadership.

If your Slack notifications are relentless and your "Direct Reports" list looks more like a small village than a team, you aren’t imagining it: The "Great Flattening" is here.

Organizations are aggressively axing middle management layers and compressing org charts. The result? A new breed of leader known as the Supermanager. According to recent Gallup data, the average number of direct reports jumped from 10.9 in 2024 to 12.1 in 2025, with 13% of managers now overseeing 25 or more people.

But is this a lean, mean efficiency machine—or a recipe for total burnout?

Why is this happening now?

Several forces are converging to kill the traditional hierarchy:

• The AI Boom: Tools are reducing the need for constant "status check" oversight.

• Cost Pressures: Companies are eager to slash overhead by removing management "bloat."

• Speed: Fewer layers mean faster decision-making (in theory).

The Peril of the "Megamanager"

While a flatter structure sounds agile, experts like Michele Herlein warn that simply piling more people onto a manager without redesigning the role is a trap. When a manager becomes purely reactive—putting out fires instead of preventing them—the entire department feels the heat.

Leena Rinne, VP at Skillsoft, once managed 80 people. Her takeaway? You cannot manage 80 people the same way you manage eight. "Organizations think if they just put more pressure on them, they’ll figure out how to do it more effectively," Rinne says. Spoiler: They don’t. They just burn out.

How to Thrive (Not Just Survive) as a Supermanager

To succeed in this new era, you have to stop "supervising" and start "coaching." Here are the three pillars of the Supermanager era:

Pillar	The Strategy
The Two C's	Prioritize Clarity (clear goals) and Compassion (human connection).
Systemize Everything	Replace 1-on-1 micromanagement with transparent systems and AI-assisted tracking.
The "Coach" Mindset	Define what winning looks like, ensure everyone knows their role, then step back.

As Jennifer Dulski, CEO of Rising Team, puts it, the future lives at the intersection of deep human connection and AI. Technology can handle the admin, but it can't provide the vision.

If your company is flattening the org chart but hasn't given you new tools, training, or a clearer strategy, they aren't building a "Supermanager"—they’re just building a bottleneck. You can't flatten your way to growth without investing in the people left standing.