> I have had a middle manager tell me that they where not cutting down the team, because he wanted to be a manager of 5 people, just like that. Better yet: the

> I have had a middle manager tell me that they where not cutting down the team, because he wanted to be a manager of 5 people, just like that. Better yet: there are companies where a team needs to have at least N people in order for it to be assigned a manager. Otherwise it gets a "team leader" and several of those get assigned to a single manager. N varies with the job, too. It can be as low as 5-6 in software development or engineering, and as high as 30-40 in administrative departments or poorly-automated production floors. So if you cut the bullshit jobs, you also cut yours. No one does that. How good it looks on the CV is also a factor, indeed, and often it's a barrier of entry, too. When hiring managers, many companies, including the ones that you'd think would know better, routinely demand a minimum team size, regardless of team performance. You can manage a team of 200 and run all projects into the ground and still get hired -- and yet get disappointed looks if you managed a team of 20, no matter how well it performed.