6 ideas
The level of any role can be objectively measured by the longest time period the incumbent works without review on a delegated task — the target completion time of their longest assignment. This converts the vague notion of 'responsibility' into a measurable quantity, since higher roles require people to operate further into an uncertain future before results can be checked.
Organizations naturally form discrete layers, each defined by a jump in cognitive complexity: from concrete shop-floor work (days to 3 months) up through corporate strategy (decades). Each stratum requires a qualitatively different mode of mental processing, not just more of the same skill, so the boundaries between layers are real discontinuities rather than arbitrary org-chart conveniences.
An individual's potential capability grows over their lifetime along a predictable, plottable trajectory, with people maturing at different rates toward different ceilings. This means future capability can be forecast, allowing organizations to identify who will be able to handle higher-stratum work years before they reach it.
A managerial relationship only functions correctly when the manager operates exactly one stratum above the subordinate — close enough to add real value by seeing further, but not so far that the gap creates a missing layer or redundant supervision. When layers are compressed or skipped, managers either micromanage work they should delegate or fail to provide the perspective subordinates cannot generate themselves.
People across cultures and industries intuitively agree on what constitutes fair compensation for a given level of work, and this felt-fair pay correlates tightly with the time-span of discretion in the role. Pay disputes therefore often signal mismatches between the actual level of work and the level being compensated, rather than mere greed or market noise.
A manager held accountable for a subordinate's output must be granted four minimum authorities: to veto unsuitable appointments, to assign tasks, to assess personal effectiveness, and to initiate removal from role. Without these, accountability becomes a fiction — the manager owns results they have no genuine power to influence.