Thirteen Direct Reports and a Prayer

Nate: One of my SE Directors came to me last month and said something that gave me flashbacks. She said: "I have eleven direct reports and I'm starting to drop things." And I just looked at her and said... yeah. I know exactly where this goes.

Ava: Because you've been there?

Nate: Because I watched someone go through it. An SE leader I worked with years ago. Went from three SEs to thirteen in eighteen months. Hyper-growth, new investor, team tripled. And he kept telling himself he could handle the span. That adding a management layer was premature.

Ava: How long did that last?

Nate: Until he physically couldn't do 1:1s anymore. Thirteen people, thirty minutes each — that's six and a half hours a week on 1:1s alone. Add team meetings, deal reviews, half the team spread across different countries... he was at capacity and coaching NOBODY.

Ava: Welcome to Leading PreSales. I'm Ava.

Nate: And I'm Nate. Every episode, one idea, five minutes. Today: when your team outgrows you.

Ava: This hits close to home because I have twelve direct reports right now. And I love being close to my team. I know every deal, I know every SE's strengths. Why would I give that up?

Nate: You wouldn't give it up. You'd evolve it. The question isn't whether you CAN manage twelve people directly. The question is what you're NOT doing because all your time goes to direct management.

Ava: Like what?

Nate: Strategic work. Cross-functional alignment. Building enablement programs instead of doing enablement yourself. Hiring ahead of demand instead of scrambling when a req opens. When this leader finally got his three team leads approved, the biggest surprise wasn't that his team got better coaching. It was that HE suddenly had time to think two quarters ahead instead of two weeks.

Ava: Three team leads for thirteen people? So roughly four or five reports per lead?

Nate: Right. And here's the part that's hard to hear — he said getting those roles approved was a FIGHT. Leadership pushed back. "Why do you need managers when you've been handling it fine?" And the answer is... he wasn't handling it fine. He just didn't have a comparison point. When you're doing everything yourself, you don't see what good looks like because there's no bandwidth to look up.

Ava: I feel called out right now. But okay... let's say someone's in that position. Seven, eight, nine direct reports, team is growing, they know the management layer is coming eventually. What's the trigger? When do you actually pull that trigger?

Nate: My rule of thumb — and this comes from watching it go wrong multiple times — is that you should START building the case for team leads at six to eight direct reports. Not when you're already at thirteen and drowning.

Ava: That feels early. At six reports I'm still having deep 1:1s, I'm still in customer calls, I'm still coaching in real time.

Nate: Exactly. And that's the trap. At six it feels manageable. At eight it feels busy but fine. At ten you start canceling your own development time. At twelve you're doing triage instead of coaching. And at thirteen you're telling your boss you're dropping things. The best time to plant a tree was five years ago. The second best time is before you hit double digits.

Ava: But there's a real cost to adding a layer, right? I've seen teams where the new manager becomes a bottleneck. Information that used to flow directly now goes through a filter. The SEs feel less connected to the leader. And honestly, promoting your best SE into management sometimes means losing your best SE.

Nate: All valid. And all solvable. This leader was intentional about who he promoted. He picked people who were already informally leading — the ones other SEs went to for advice. One had told him she wanted to move off the customer-facing track.

Ava: That's lucky.

Nate: It wasn't luck. He'd been having career development conversations all along. He KNEW who wanted what. When the roles opened, it wasn't a surprise. The informal authority already existed — he just formalized it.

Ava: Okay, that's a good point. So you're not parachuting in external managers. You're recognizing the leadership that's already happening organically and giving it structure.

Nate: Right. And the people who didn't get promoted? They were fine with it — because they didn't WANT it. Not every senior SE wants to manage. Most don't. Knowing that early saves you from the classic mistake of promoting your top performer into a job they'll hate.

Ava: So what's the move?

Nate: If you have more than six direct reports and your team is still growing, start the conversation with your leadership now. Don't wait until you're at thirteen and exhausted. Build the business case around what you COULD be doing with freed-up capacity — and start identifying your informal leaders today, because when the role opens, you want to promote someone who's already doing the job.

Ava: Don't wait until you're drowning to ask for a lifeboat. I'm Ava.

Nate: And I'm Nate. See you next episode.