There is no such thing as the perfect team size, but recent research shows that three-to six-member groups were significantly more productive and have higher levels of trust and commitment than larger teams.
Smaller teams consistently outperform larger ones because coordination overhead and motivational drag rise sharply with size. Larger teams require more coordination because beyond a point, every new person adds complexity faster than they add contribution. It can also be tougher to speak up (read: share your knowledge) on larger teams.
Team productivity = team potential + process gain - process loss
The point here, however, is not to limit team size to 6 but to understand the impacts of larger teams, be cautious when adding members, and do the work to make larger teams more effective. This won’t happen on its own.
Here's a pattern I have seen a lot: a company finds a great candidate, and the candidate wants to report to the CEO. So the company creates the role at that level. Sometimes that's the right call. But too often, it's not a strategic org design choice — it's a recruiting concession. And those concessions stack up. If someone truly belongs at the C-suite level, absolutely — bring them in there. But handing out levels to land talent is how you end up with a top-heavy org that looks impressive on paper and underperforms in practice.
So, the question for leaders is: Where is your leadership team bigger than it needs to be—and what would you gain by making it smaller and sharper?