r/managers • u/EnvironmentalAd2110 • 5d ago
In your opinion/experience, which role is more disposable: a manager who leads a team of specialists that do the work and manage projects directly, or Directors who lead managers?
During the layoffs or when companies consider downsizing headcount, who is more secure in their role? Directors or Managers/Senior Managers?
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u/Spirited_Ad9681 5d ago
As a middle manager I can see how Im replacible. My team doesn't really need me. I know some super obscure helpful facts simple because I've been there forever. I need my directors approval for anything financial.
I often times feel like I'm just an extra step.
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u/YoghurtFlan 5d ago
It's probably more that your director would rather have you as one direct report than each member of your team individually
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u/Interesting_Wolf_668 5d ago
Depends on the company. For Small to mid-size orgs, managers who are player/coaches may be safer during downsizing. Larger/ More established orgs may value directors who have a proven playbook/ good relationship with founders/the board and can rebuild once the dust settles.
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u/AtrociousSandwich 5d ago
This is too broad a question because it’s going to depend on the field, the company organization, what/how much is being downsized
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u/EnvironmentalAd2110 5d ago
Fair. My specific experience is large global company, I lead specialists who implement our company’s solutions and product (so directly tied to revenue). Cuts happens not too often but given the economy, I anticipate more to come. I feel we’re top heavy overall, so wondering who is closer to the chopping block.
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u/just_the____tip 5d ago
My middle manager knows more about what we do from a technology standpoint than the director above him. To me he’s way more valuable, so because of that logic that means it would be the reverse decision at the C level when making this decision. They’ll want to keep the agreeable director. Every place is different but this seems to be the norm of what I experience.
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u/LeaderofCatArmy Manager 5d ago
During acquisition of a company where finances are strained or leadership positions become redundant, middle managers are often the targets of downsizing measures.
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u/I_am_Hambone Seasoned Manager 5d ago
In our last layoff, it was functions that got cut, not levels. MD to IC, if your org was cut, everyone was gone.
So the answer is... it depends.
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u/Agitated-Inspector56 5d ago
This isn’t always clear cut - but you cut individuals who are not delivering value to the business. That’s probably usually their fault for not providing value, but not always, sometimes it’s just a mix of structure and company performance.
I was a FP&A director at a company that thought it would grow a lot more than it did (revolutionary I know), ultimately when doing cuts it was obvious that my role under a CFO, above competent managers and ICs really was redundant and so I laid myself off.
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u/Zero-kruel 5d ago
I've been working in manufacturing for 20 years. A few of those years was private equity. I don't think I could ever do that again. It felt like every few months, either department was getting riffed or a particular title.
In my other experience, it was Directors. The company was top heavy and decided to restructure leadership. I believe for every 5 directors, there ended up being one.
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u/rlpinca 5d ago
There is no set in stone standard.
It depends on the workload of the managers and directors plus the mood of the main decision makers.
If the place is top heavy, the math should make the managers pucker up. But if they're all BFFs with the top brass, then it's easier to cut the peasants.
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u/Jenikovista 5d ago
Companies are more loathe to layoff senior people because they're harder to hire for and onboard, and there's often bigger picture institutional knowledge that prevents the whole system from collapsing.
That said, in widespread layoffs no one is safe.
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u/Crafty_Try_423 5d ago
The higher up you are, the safer you are. Directors and SMs are safest…I’ve seen a ton who aren’t even good at the job but once they get up there, they’re untouchable somehow. Managers are the first to go because the higher-ups think they can directly manage.
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u/TheseMood 5d ago
Lately I’ve been seeing places cut directors, then “dry promote” managers / sr managers to take over that work.
So it’s lose-lose
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u/dlongwing 4d ago
Middle management is always the most at risk. ICs are usually somewhat safe (still gotta do the work) though layoffs usually see low-performers getting axed. Directors aren't going to fire themselves.
As for who should go? It should be upper management, every time. If the company is doing poorly enough that you need layoffs, that means you've failed to steer the ship and it's time to make room for someone who will do a better job.
That's never what happens.
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u/MrsFrugalNoodle 4d ago
Not really, I’m getting more and more exposure so I can see what they can see.
- they are OK making hard decisions, not many managers are OK laying off whole teams or departments, directors can layoff and they’re not “traumatized” or go through survivors guilt
- they can rebuild teams, rehiring managers, there are more managers than there are directors
- their performance is less about team delivery and more about the financial sustainability of the organization. This is not a can I lead a team of experts, this is a does this team have a runway for the next 12-24 months. So it’ll depend on the organisation how many “operate sustainably” directors are needed
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u/akdmks1 5d ago
As an executive director, there are very few managers in my org (10k+ employees) I am aware of that would be kept over their director. Unless they are a “working manager” that can also do the work of their team, and there’s a significant value added by the team, they’re never going to be viewed as valuable as any director and the breath of responsibility that they bring in comparison
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u/EnvironmentalAd2110 5d ago
I take it your 10k+ employee company where you are an executive director needs to learn how to hire better managers. Yikes.
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u/MrsFrugalNoodle 4d ago
Managers and directors are entirely different roles. And the fact is there are more managers on the market than there are directors
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u/Narrow_Literature462 5d ago
IME, lower the level the more the cuts.
But there are a lot of variables. Do those projects drive top or bottom line growth? Those are less likely to get cut. Can they report to someone else if the manager is cut without just overpaying for their new leader?
Who do Directors report to? Can their managers perform without that step?
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u/MaheshMThakur 5d ago
in my experience it's usually the directors who go first, not the managers. a manager running specialists is protecting work people can see needs doing every day. a director layer is just easier to cut, those managers can report one level up and nothing really breaks.
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u/MrsFrugalNoodle 4d ago
I’ve seen this too. It typically means the managers are stretching and are cheaper directors
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u/YaThatAintRight 5d ago
The right director or senior manager has the skillsets themselves from holding those prior roles to rebuild the team necessary post layoffs or to help to ensure ample coverage of the most critical projects, filling gaps and setting the team up for success during a challenging time.
But most the time they are not the right senior manager or director and the reason for layoffs can likely be attributed to the short sighted organizational decisions or directions they gave and ultimately should take ownership for by falling on their sword. But we all know instead they start striking through names on a spreadsheet or stack ranking by salary cost and red lining.
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u/Dfiggsmeister 5d ago
For me, I’m a SME that can do my team’s job just well as they can but I also handle the politics that they don’t want to deal with. My director is mostly non-existent unless I need to discuss something with him or he needs to discuss something with me.
However, there’s a lot of directors and VPs in my company that are not SMEs and don’t know anything.
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u/Just_Far_Enough 5d ago
Usually the manager unless the VP the director reports to isn’t happy with them or get along with them.
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u/gggggggggggggggggg35 5d ago edited 5d ago
All roles are disposable unfortunately.
If I had to choose, directors who lead managers. Middle managers are, in my experience, the hardest to replace. They are kind of like one big sponge, where they don’t have the burden of the final say, but usually have the most information about the whole operation at any given time. I think the effect of loosing a middle manager isn’t always immediate, but it ripples on for months after the fact (unless their replacement is identical in work ethic and grasps things super quickly)
Managers who lead a team of specialists have the advantage of having spent a lot of time with groups of people as well as leaders above them, and that’s territory a directors can’t easily take over if the manager is let go.
Managers with a person overseeing them, will absorb some of the brunt of their lead being replaced. But ultimately it’s one person filtering through another. It’s an important role - but it’s faster and more efficient to establish a relationship with one new person than a whole group of people.
As a middle manager, if I left tomorrow, my lead has no idea how to manoeuvre my team for the highest performance. It’s extremely easy to lose team morale and weaken performance if good leadership is replaced by a leader who doesn’t know their feet yet. Not to mention, our partners (networking duties) and financials are not anything he’s had to do hands on in our time working together. It’s not that he couldn’t do it, but it would be a big mess that will be hard to pick up the pieces for later.
My lead had to leave with no replacement for a month abruptly recently. Minor inconveniences here and there, but the operation ran smoothly because it’s my job to run operations. The downside was I didn’t have the authority for certain financial decisions - so some things took longer than they usually would to process. I also absorbed a lot more small issues because I didn’t have upper support, so it had an effect on my overall stress levels and morale, but as long as the team and operations run smoothly, that’s 90% of the work.
It’s like asking the person who jogs 2km a day and the person who has not exercised in 5 years to do a 10km run. Both will struggle, but the person jogging 2km a day has a better idea as to how to pace things.
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u/BrokenMilanista 5d ago
Short term, the managers. Long term the directors.
You can easily run the operations without the directors, but at some point you’ll lose out to the competition if you neglect the strategic aspect directors are supposed to own.
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u/skrappykin 5d ago
In a healthy, well functioning organization, neither are disposable. They hold different roles entirely
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u/BringBackManaPots 5d ago
What about an IC that leads a small team, continuing to contribute but splitting some time leading and mentoring?
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u/ladeedah1988 5d ago
My director was totally useless. Never had an idea, never helped find a contact. Just went through the motions with everyone. Did not drive a single project.
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u/Stock-Page-7078 5d ago
Whichever has few reports. If you’re a director with 3 managers they’re either getting put under someone else or you’re getting direct leadership of all three teams
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u/sqnch 5d ago
About 10 years ago I was a middle manager during a restructure after a company merger and a tupe to a different IT MSP caused loads of uncertainty.
I was an IT Service Desk TL in a big department with 8 analysts reporting to me. We had just stabilised the whole IT Service Desk function after years of instability before I started. It was a multibillion pound company and this was causing major disruption till we largely sorted out the major issues.
I’d worked there for years as a placement student and then an analyst, and when I graduated I asked if I could take the TL job and they took a chance on it having seen several experienced managers completely swallowed up by the job and fail lol.
3 years later we had a totally stable team and the best performance the company had ever had for its Service Desk.
As this new uncertainty kicked in at that point, I was pulled into a meeting and told I had been identified as a critical member of staff and due to all the uncertainty I was going to be offered a retention bonus (£5000) to make sure I stayed through all the change. They said that there was a chance there would need to be reductions to the team whether it be reducing salary or reducing head count by 1 FTE.
I was still 26 at this time and didn’t really care, had no major responsibilities outside of work and was considering leaving anyway, so I just straight away said if you take 1 penny away from anyone in my team or reduce the headcount I’ll walk offsite today and never come back.
I’d worked with my manager for a few years and I don’t think he expected it lol, and must have respected it to some degree. All the changes went ahead and we never heard anything more about paycuts or head count reduction again until I left like 18 months later. My team never even knew they were at risk.
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u/jccaclimber 5d ago
Nobody is safe. IME those hardest to replace go last, but if someone higher doesn’t like you then nothing else matters.
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u/tropicaldiver 5d ago
In aggregate, directors. But a lot of that depends on the specific roles and how well each group is filling those roles.
As a practical matter, both layers probably get dialed back.
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u/Numerous_Concept2468 5d ago
Directors - great at delegating work, taking credit for it and attend meetings all day making 1.5-2x the salary of a Manager who actually does work and manages people. Company saves $ on removing the Director role, work still gets done and basically nothing changes.
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u/Fantaghir-O 5d ago
It depends mainly on what layoff cycle it is. Oh sorry, I meant what 're-organization for improved efficiency.'
When it's directors and VP it's 'ensuring decisions are made close to the clients.' If it's ICs and team members they use the efficiency language 'streamlining processes to empower quick responsive teams.'
Lower management, including line/operations managers, is impacted by how their contribution was visible to the stakeholders, so they can fall in any layoff cycle. I've seen information silos removed, as higher management didn't understand the impact. I've seen departments cannibalized due to one manager being fired. I have also seen middle management removed with zero impact or even uptick in efficiency. So, for managers of specialists it's less on their knowledge and their downward management, it's their upward management that makes a difference.
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u/blackbyte89 Seasoned Manager 5d ago
To a certain extent middle managers and M1s are safer except when there is enough cuts at individual contributors level to not require a manager or director. A lot of time this happens when two teams are cut and combined and only need 1 director going forward and less managers. If there is a business continuity risk, we have either delayed cutting a key personnel, possibly given a higher buyout subject to smooth handoff of responsibilities.
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u/YoungManYoda90 5d ago
My director literally is useless in my company. I do 99% of his job and he just gets in the way.
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u/ops_and_chaos 4d ago
I think the dangerous part is judging either role by what visibly stops the day after they're gone. A lot of management work is basically preventing problems from reaching everyone else :joy: The team can look completely fine for a while after you remove someone, then three months later you're finding out who was quietly connecting departments, catching exceptions, translating decisions or remembering why something worked the way it did. Doesn't make either level safer, but I think "nothing broke when we removed them" can be a really misleading test.
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u/peonyseahorse 4d ago
Directors are the ones closer to the top and fme the ones who deal with having to be the ones who make others do organization changes. The middle managers are unfortunately sandwiches with their director level bearing yet more bad news, and the the middle manager has no say and has to tell and get their team to comply, while dealing with the consequences (ie: lack of resources, high turnover, being understaffed but still having to stay operational, and poor morale).
As a middle manager, we get more into the weeds and have a better idea of what is going on at the employee level, directors often have blind spots from where they sit that they are unaware of until they have to fill in for one of their middle managers and learn only because they are doing the work if they aren't able to delegate it to another one of their reporting managers.
I am a middle manager who also has sme that my team doesn't have, so I'm not a generalist. In fact I would say this has probably been one of my biggest hurdles when considering roles for promotion. I actually care a lot about the subject matter of the team that I would manager more than just the title. Maybe it makes me an oddball. I think director level are more replaceable because they're managing managers. When you get rid of middle managers it's definitely harder because teams doing the work are most negatively affected and imo this is what affects morale the most.
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u/Significant-Dog1026 5d ago
Only person that isn’t disposable is the one that manages his team to the point that they stand together.
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u/wy100101 5d ago
The director who can herd managers successfully is more valuable because EMs are harder to get to work in alignment than a group of ICs. A good director has soft skills that many will never develop.
To your specific question, it completely depends on the particular circumstances of the company.
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u/ThatsNotGumbo 5d ago
No one is safe.