When no one is authorised to decide
In 2026, organisations are judged less by what they promise than by how decisively they act when information is incomplete, and scrutiny is immediate.Most organisational failures do not start with poor judgement or a flawed message. They begin earlier, at the moment a decision is required, and no one is clearly authorised to make it. This often surfaces in a crisis, when time is limited, pressure is public, and the usual processes no longer suffice. Hesitation becomes visible, not because systems break, but because the process itself constrains action.
Large organisations distribute responsibility while centralising accountability. This design ensures consistency, control, and risk management, but introduces friction when decisions must be made quickly and without full information. Authority often sits several layers above the point of impact: local leaders understand context but lack mandate; group leaders hold rights but lack immediacy; functional teams optimise for legal, reputational, or operational exposure. Individually, these elements function well—but collectively, they delay action.
Escalation frameworks, intended as safeguards, often become holding patterns. When authority is unclear, organisations default to internal consultation, involving legal, risk, communications, and executive teams simultaneously. Each input is rational; collectively, they slow down decisions. Communications teams feel the pressure first—not because messaging is flawed, but because it becomes the public symptom of organisational hesitation.
Organisations under pressure rarely lack intelligence or expertise. What they lack is permission. Without deliberately designed authority, leaders may know what to do, but no one is empowered to act. Meetings multiply, language becomes cautious, responsibility diffuses, and nothing moves.
A simple test of authority: if a high-risk issue arose this afternoon, who could decide in the first hour without escalation? If the answer differs by function, geography, or individual, authority is fragile.
Organisations that navigate pressure successfully treat authority as an operating system—deliberately designed, tested under stress, and trusted when consensus is impossible. Few verify that authority works in practice, and the gap between theory and execution is where credibility is won or lost.
In 2026, reputations are made not by promises but by decisive action under uncertainty. The organisations that examine, stress-test, and redesign authority before a crisis strike the difference between those that stall and those that hold.
Sanchia Temkin is the Associate Director: Content at the APO Group.
