This company has so much middle management bloat. If there’s more than 1 layer between direction setters (ie SVPs) and line managers, you have bloat and increased confusion. Decisions take longer. Decisions are less coherent. You’re adding inefficiency and latency. You’re sabotaging the company and your coworkers. If you can’t put to words why another layer is organizationally necessary, DO NOT ADD ANOTHER ONE BY DEFAULT.
These people are climbing a career ladder that shouldn’t exist. They aren’t aligning anybody with anything other than their own short-sighted, organizationally destructive career interests. The only reason why they haven’t been eliminated is because this company is glacial with structural change.
Most of middle management do not give a damn about the work. They’ve dedicated large chunks of their lives to desperately grasp for the next rung on the ladder, and have no sense of meaning or what they’re actually doing. You have entire strata of people mentally checked out, trying to cosplay as “leaders.” If your behavior and guidance does not result in outsized gains amongst your peers and reports, you ARE NOT A LEADER.
Think on that for a second. Are you a leader, or an organizer? The one who asks “why,” or the one that fearfully ticks boxes? Does your brain do anything with the information that comes in? Or is your talent sycophancy and mindless pattern matching? We have base-capability paper pushers believing that they’re fit for command.
There isn’t a reason to have that many reporting layers. Think about it this way, would you rather have 5 more managers in your org, or 5 more g11-14 engineers?
I have seen so many people come to terms with the inescapable dysfunctionality here and either mentally check out or quit. I don’t know why I bother. Nothing ever changes, the only upside is that organizational bloat caps actual work at 15 hours/week. Which I assume is the only real upside people stick around for. Staying in the putrefaction until it gets you.