Idea in Brief
Not so lonely at the top
CEOs have doubled their span of control over the past two decades:
Increased geographical and market complexities demand new points of view in the top team.
CEOs are increasingly engaged in the business, and more are playing the span-breaking COO role themselves.
CEOs are changing the leadership mix:
Functional leaders account for 80% of the increase in positions reporting to the CEO.
And the COO position is fading. By 1999 just 45% of Fortune 500 companies had a COO, and the figure continues to drop.
Executive development vehicles have expanded:
New development options offer ways for leaders to collaborate across the organization.
More functional leaders are taking on elements of general manager roles.
If senior executives are feeling ever-increasing pressure on their time—and few would suggest that’s not the case—why would they add more to their plates? It seems counterintuitive, but according to our research into C-level roles over the past two decades, the CEO’s average span of control, measured by the number of direct reports, has doubled, rising from about five in the mid-1980s to almost 10 in the mid-2000s. The leap in the chief executive’s purview is all the more remarkable when you consider that companies today are vastly more complex, globally dispersed, and strictly scrutinized than those of previous generations.
