No, the users being managed wouldn’t have any role at all. They would just have their own email address as an owner row, which means they would only see their own data.
Only the Managers would be given the Manager role, and as a Manager would be set as a Row Owner for every user, they would have access to all data.
This might be easier to explain with a picture. Consider the following example:
In the example above, the first 3 users are Managers. Each of them has the Manager role assigned. Now because Manager is a Row Owner (designated by the little blue icon in the column header), they have access to all users. However, the rest of the users - from row 4 onwards - have no Role. But their email column is set as a Row Owner, so they will have access to their own row only.
Below is an example of a slightly more complicated setup, that reflects a hierarchy of management.
- Marie (Row 1) is the CEO. She has the CEO Role, and that Role is an Owner of every row. So she sees all users.
- Tamsin (Row 2) is a Manager, and the Users from rows 9-15 report to her. She has the Manager 1 role, and Manager 1 is set as a Row Owner for those rows. So she sees her own row plus those of all she manages.
- Sarah (Row 3) is also a Manager, but for a different set of users. She has the Manager 2 role, and that role is set as a Row Owner for all those users that she manages (rows 4-8)
- So in the above example, both Tamsin & Sarah have access to the rows of those users that report to them, but not any of the users that report to their counterpart manager.