I'm an engineering manager with 10 reports. What's worked for me is 1-on-1 meetings with each team member each week. We set strategy for high level goals (e.g.

I'm an engineering manager with 10 reports. What's worked for me is 1-on-1 meetings with each team member each week. We set strategy for high level goals (e.g. a quarterly software release), measure progress, and I let them know about work other folks are doing that is related. I trust them to use slack/email/phone to get the work the done, and I don't closely monitor those channels. Doing 1-on-1s is a lot of meetings, but I don't think as a manager you can avoid that work and still move effectively towards a larger common goal. Eventually though, a lot of people learn to execute more complex and valuable work, they get promoted, and then we meet less. But then there's hiring. The cycle continues. I'd be interested to know how folks who have 2 layers of reports learned to work effectively with that size setup.