Stretched
Level 3. Scores 51 to 75. You are carrying more than your calendar supports.
You are carrying more than your calendar supports. Either your direct report count is past the band for your role, or your contact hours have grown to fill the week, or both. You are probably still doing a good job, which is the problem, because a Stretched leader who is still delivering does not look like someone who needs anything to change.
Here is what Stretched looks like from your team's side. One on ones get moved. Not cancelled, moved, which is worse, because a cancelled meeting is honest and a moved one teaches people not to prepare. Decisions take a week because they wait for a slot. Feedback arrives late and in bulk. And the leader, who used to know what each person was working on, now knows what each person reported.
From your side it looks like a calendar with no white space, a growing list of things only you can do, and the sense that you are working harder than last year for the same output. You are. The extra effort is going into carrying the span, not into leading.
Look at the components above. If the span component is the driver, you have too many names and the fix is structural: a lead, a layer, or a boundary. If the meeting component is the driver, you have the right number of people and the wrong contact pattern, usually too many recurring meetings and not enough decisions made without you.
In my experience the ceilings arrive in a fixed order. Calendar first, then team, then strategy. A Stretched leader is at the first one, and it hides the other two. When I read a Stretched leader's week I look for three things. The hours that went to work only they could do. The decisions that waited for them and did not need to.
And whether there is a leadership meeting where the team talks to each other, not only to the leader. Usually there is not, so every piece of information routes up and back down again. That is not a people problem yet. It is a calendar problem. Fix the calendar first, because the team problem behind it cannot be seen until you do.
One change for this month. If span is the driver, name the one person on your team who could lead two or three of the others, and start the conversation this week. If contact is the driver, cut one recurring meeting and replace it with a written update, then see what breaks. Usually nothing.
Next step: the meeting rhythm is often the hidden half of a Stretched score. Cost it with the meeting cost calculator.
Next step
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About this result
This is one of 4 results from the Span of Control Calculator, a free tool that shows the score without an email. Aggregate figures are at the statistics page once 30 completions have been reached. More free tools are at the tools shelf.