I'm hoping a few of you in the Searchfunder community can offer some opinions or resources for businesses that are moving from being 2-layer management structures to 3-layer management structures (ie creating middle managers) for the first time.

Our business is a roll-up in the music education industry, and we just acquired our 22nd location. Currently, each of these locations has a location manager, and that person reports to either the CEO or COO of the business. As we continue to grow, this number of direct reports can't grow to infinity, so we're planning to create 2-3 regional manager positions that would each manage 8-10 locations.

In particular, I'm worried about the risk of "culture shock" for location managers that are used to reporting to a c-level person feeling like they're getting "layered" and taking that really poorly.

Any advice is welcome!