Management is a skill, but it's a fairly generic and transferable one.
ICs can be specialists, and there are rare / valuable specialist skills that can command far higher comp than a generic manager or director.
There's nothing about comp itself that would cause a report making higher comp to undermine a manager making less. And a good manager will defer to the report on the topics the report is an expert on.
(Tho in a pathological organization or if the report is an asshole, it might be an indicator that the report is more valuable to the organization and could go over the manager's head to undermine the manager if they wanted to.)
Comments
Management is a skill, but it's a fairly generic and transferable one.
ICs can be specialists, and there are rare / valuable specialist skills that can command far higher comp than a generic manager or director.
There's nothing about comp itself that would cause a report making higher comp to undermine a manager making less. And a good manager will defer to the report on the topics the report is an expert on.
(Tho in a pathological organization or if the report is an asshole, it might be an indicator that the report is more valuable to the organization and could go over the manager's head to undermine the manager if they wanted to.)