I don’t know if this is helpful; I hope it is a little helpful. I don’t usually hear “indirect boss”, or “direct boss”. It may sound more natural to say my “immediate boss”, but I can’t say I’ve heard that before. 🙄❓❓❓ At my husband’s work, his immediate superior is the “manager”, the one above him is the “supervisor” and the overseer of the whole department is the “director”. I think a lot of places are like that, each position has a specific title, but they may vary slightly depending on the company. In my husband’s case, if he wants to express the idea of his ‘direct boss’, he will say, for example, “I talked to the manager” or “I talked to my manager”... “The supervisor” or “my supervisor said”... “I talked to the director”... I hope that helps.

I'd say "immediate superior" or "immediate manager" is probably a more commonly used term than "immediate boss". Not that boss would be wrong, but it's a mix of one more formal word (immediate) and one casual word (boss), which makes the combination sound a bit off. I'll therefore use "manager" instead when answering: 1. Yes, "direct manager" works great, in my experience it's even more commonly used, at least in speech. 2. As for indirect, "indirect superior" can absolutely be used to describe someone above your direct manager. You can say "indirect manager" too, but my guess is that that is a more specific term that can mean different things in different organizations.