I personally slightly prefer deeper management structures, all else being equal, because they usually result in less management I have to directly deal with. In

I personally slightly prefer deeper management structures, all else being equal, because they usually result in less management I have to directly deal with. In "flat" organizations it's often the case that you're not very deep in the org chart, but the layer you're on is densely webbed, so there are 3 or 4 people in the level above you who you de-facto report to in one way or another. With more hierarchical organizations you're usually insulated from these other managers because you only directly report to one. For me, having fewer layers of management above me, but in return having to deal directly with a larger number of individual managers, isn't a good tradeoff. (This is assuming a roughly normal company overall. Something that really takes being flat seriously, like a worker's cooperative, might be different, but I've never worked at such a place.)