Fear loves a foggy org chart

Why do people spend more time protecting themselves than producing results when accountability is unclear?

Three reasons:

1. Ambiguity triggers anxiety

When it’s unclear who owns what, people worry about being blamed if something goes wrong, they default to cover-your-butt-behavior (e.g., over-documenting, forwarding emails, avoiding decisions), and energy shifts from progress to protection.

2. No clear ownership = no momentum

If nobody knows who’s in charge of something, work slows down and key decisions stall. People assume someone else will step in or worse, everyone starts working on the same thing differently, wasting time.

3. Fear of blame kills initiative

Without clear accountability people fear being the one caught out so they stop taking risks, asking questions, or calling out problems. Psychological safety drops, and so does innovation.

Where is accountability typically most unclear?

New initiatives, new projects and any significant change.

An overwhelm in new thinking, activities and time pressure often cause clear accountabilities for execution to be overlooked. But research has found lack of clear accountability is one of the most significant killers of new initiatives.

And it's the 4th dysfunction in Patrick Lencioni's book, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team."

The fix? Don’t wait for clarity. Create it.

Ask the simplest hard question, “Who’s this for, and who’s responsible for getting it done?”

Say it out loud. Write it down. Make it visible somewhere.

When people know where the edges are, they can start drawing inside, and outside, the lines.

Clarity fuels courage. And courage gets results.