It's essentially setting up a field to calculate or default to your approval settings, and a stored proc with a standardized table, using select statements to fill in the rows one by one.  I built out sql views that are specifically structured to answer the questions I'm asking and fill in the data I need. For example, the department head where clause look like WHERE IsDepartmentHead='Yes' and Department=@Dept and returns the @@ApprovalTable fields.   Here's some simplified psuedo code, that hopefully demonstrates the general concept.

CREATE PROCEDURE [Create_ApprovalTable]
    @EmployeeNum   NVARCHAR(MAX),
    @ApprovalLevel NVARCHAR(MAX) = 'IGNORE', --Employee, Supervisor, etc. formatted "Supervisor/Employee"
    @Dept          NVARCHAR(MAX) = ''
AS
    SET NOCOUNT ON;
    DECLARE @@ApprovalTable TABLE
        (
            RN                   INT,
            ApprovalType         NVARCHAR(MAX),
            Approval_DisplayName NVARCHAR(MAX),
            Approval_User        NVARCHAR(MAX),
            Approval_EmployeeNum NVARCHAR(MAX),
            Approval_NameNum     NVARCHAR(MAX)
        );

    DECLARE
        @OutEmpNum NVARCHAR(MAX),
        @OutDN     NVARCHAR(MAX),
        @OutSAM    NVARCHAR(MAX),
        @OutNN     NVARCHAR(MAX),
        @RwCnt     INT          = 1,
        @TempType  NVARCHAR(MAX);


    INSERT INTO @@ApprovalTable
        (
            RN,
            ApprovalType
        )
                SELECT
                    ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY
                                           (
                                               SELECT
                                                   NULL
                                           )
                                      ) RN,
                    *
                FROM
                    STRING_SPLIT(@ApprovalLevel, '/');


    WHILE @RwCnt <=
        (
            SELECT
                MAX(RN)
            FROM
                @@ApprovalTable
        )
        BEGIN
            SET @OutEmpNum = NULL;
            SET @OutDN = NULL;
            SET @OutSAM = NULL;
            SET @OutNN = NULL;
            SELECT
                @TempType = ApprovalType
            FROM
                @@ApprovalTable
            WHERE
                RN = @RwCnt;
            IF @TempType = 'Employee'
                BEGIN
                    SELECT TOP 1
                           @OutDN     = DisplayName,
                           @OutSAM    = LFAccountUserName,
                           @OutEmpNum = EmployeeNumber,
                           @OutNN     = DisplayName_Number
                    FROM
                           employeedata
                    WHERE
                           EmployeeNumber = @EmployeeNum;
                END;
            --IF's go on and on for each type supported

            UPDATE
                @@ApprovalTable
            SET
                Approval_EmployeeNum = @OutEmpNum,
                Approval_NameNum = @OutNN,
                Approval_DisplayName = @OutDN,
                Approval_User = @OutSAM
            WHERE
                RN = @RwCnt;

            SET @RwCnt = @RwCnt + 1;
        END;
    SELECT
        ApprovalType,
        ISNULL(Approval_DisplayName, '') Approval_DisplayName,
        ISNULL(Approval_User, '')        Approval_User,
        ISNULL(Approval_EmployeeNum, '') Approval_EmployeeNum,
        ISNULL(Approval_NameNum, '')     Approval_NameNum
    FROM
        @@ApprovalTable;