How capable people make structural gaps invisible
In many of the organizations I have come to know, people do their jobs well. The IT lead keeps things running, the providers deliver what was ordered, executives ask the right questions. And still something stays undone that everyone knows about. That is rarely one person's fault. More often it is a gap in the structure that one person compensates for so well that nobody needs to see it anymore.
A pattern I keep running into, simplified here: an IT lead is responsible for running a domain, say telephony or the ERP system. But the provider who operates it is not one the IT lead is allowed to manage; the contract, the budget and escalation sit with executive management or with procurement. When something breaks, the IT lead steps in: with overtime, with good contacts at the provider, with workarounds. It works. And because it works, the organization has no reason to notice the gap.
I call this mechanism Collateral Governance. An organization shifts a governance risk onto a person instead of fixing the structure. The person does not become an owner, because they have no authority. They become the thing that absorbs the risk. The better they are at it, the longer the gap stays invisible, and nobody hid it on purpose.
Responsibility without authority is risk transfer.
Why executives do not see it
Reports show what is measured. Compensating is not measured; it shows up as a smooth-running operation. The gap usually becomes visible only when the person is out or leaves, or when a decision comes up that nobody in this arrangement is allowed to make. Then a silent gap turns into an escalation, and it lands with executive management at a moment nobody chose.
It is tempting to read this as a staffing question: a strong IT lead worth keeping. That is true, but it is only half the story. The dependency is the symptom. The cause is that one role is expected to answer for an outcome whose preconditions another role controls.
What can be done
Divided responsibilities are not a defect; in larger organizations they are the norm. Procurement holding the contract while IT runs the service can work well. It becomes a problem when the coordination between the roles is not settled, or when a role is measured on an outcome it cannot influence.
So the useful question is: who is allowed to decide, and has that been aligned with the role that carries the responsibility? If the authority sits elsewhere and there is no settled way to reach it, you have found the spot. Three ways lead out: bring the authority to the responsibility, move the responsibility to where the authority sits, or settle the coordination between the two roles so that it works without workarounds.
If everything needed sits within IT, the IT lead can fix it directly. Once the contract, the budget or the reporting lines belong to other departments, it takes executive management, because only executives move responsibilities between departments. Sometimes that is a signature under an arrangement nobody had written down. Sometimes contract rights and budget lines depend on it, and then it takes time and alignment.
A question for your next meeting
Pick one domain of your IT and ask who decides on budget, provider and the order of initiatives. If the answer runs long, a second question is worth asking: does the coordination between these roles work, or is someone compensating for it right now?
Which gap in your organization is one person compensating for right now, and would you notice if they stopped?
Mathies Wähner · Interim Lead · IT Governance & Program Stabilization. New notes appear on LinkedIn first. Follow there →