Professed Words of a Management Guru

For General Managers who are closely involved with the subordinates than super managers, the span of management has to be comparatively narrow (say - 10 to 12 subordinates only). For middle managers, the appropriate span of management depends in parts, on the precise mix of executive and operative supervision that their specific jobs require. Generally speaking it can be 50 subordinates. At the supervisory levels where the work involved is of routine nature, the span of management is normally quite wide, say 100 subordinates. Economic considerations also affect the choice of span. Smaller spans mean a larger number of managers with the added salaries and other costs they entail. But wide spans also involve ‘extra costs in the inefficiencies that result from diminished managerial leadership. Hence, an economic balance has to be arrived at between cost savings that result from the largest possible span and the added costs that an organization begins to incur as the span grows too wide.