One of the great sins of many organizations is that they have great expectations of their employees and give them a lot of responsibility, but do not provide them with the tools (‘authority’) to fulfill them.

The Trap

In the negotiation process between an employer and an employee, often the employer requires a lot of (Responsibility or workload of) an employee. The degree to which that employee is also been given the ”Power” or Authority does not always match this responsibility. Often that is perfectly fine, where somebody needs to organize something but still needs to get approval (e.g. for a budget) from a higher up. However, ‘doing’ certain tasks is virtually impossible without also having some appropriate authority. Once the difference between Responsibility and Authority becomes too large, the employee falls in the Authority Trap. That she then frequently has to be ‘put back in her cage’ because she oversteps her boundaries in her zeal to fulfill her responsibilities properly for the good of the company is nothing but inevitable. These ‘callbacks’ can be greatly demoralizing by themselves and are doubly harmful since they mainly occur to exactly the highly-motivated employee we will need again in the next difficult situation.

To avoid this pitfall and properly attribute employees, the following factors need to be aligned:

1. Expectations

The very first item that comes to mind when hiring an employee is that she will fulfill a need, live up to certain expectations. To ensure satisfaction of both parties, one should ensure that these expectations are both made explicit and accepted by both. If an Account Manager comes to fulfill the role for 1-2 years on her way to the next career stop the Manager (or the Client for that matter) might not be too thrilled. At the same time, one can expect a little more from an employee that is very experienced than from a novice.

2. Goals

Whereas expectations might be fairly global, goals should be SMART. These goals are also discussed annually and usually part of some kind of reward system (whether a bonus or not).

To ensure that the whole department works together on the departmental goals, often those are made part of the bonus structure of all of the departmental members.

How much departmental goals should constitute of the overall evaluation plan can be (sometimes hotly) debated, but 30-70% I have regularly seen, whereas I once saw a Personal Assistant given exactly the same goals as her manager, since she supported those goals directly via her boss.

3. Responsibilities

Self-motivated employees do not need to be given responsibilities, they live them themselves. Sometimes even to the degree that it gives them physical or mental hardship, since responsibility often coincides with workload. Still, when the responsibilities match the capabilities of the individual, the next problem arises – all to often – if multiple parties claim certain responsibilities, or if (often external) parties are not aware of who is the ‘carrier of that responsibility’. Sometimes long arduous corporate processes take place discussing a RACI that is acceptable for all parties involved.

These responsibilities are not only crucial in distributing ‘responsibility’ but also in distributing information by establishing the communication lines. Whoever is responsible needs to be present when the topic is being discussed. A malicious mind would think that ‘Responsibility’ is sometimes claimed by employees out of pure curiosity. I once observed a ‘complete’ project team – which explicitly excluded communication lines as a topic from the agenda – that was meeting with one another during the whole week under ever changing meeting topics and constantly re-hashing the same information that a few externals had brought into this ‘information circus’. They considered the internal cooperation and communication as being ‘exemplary’.

4. Authority

Whereas ‘Responsibility’ refers to ‘doing’,’Áuthority’ refers to deciding.(See also the IDA-cycle). In a way, one could see the Responsibility as the commitment the employee makes to the employer, and Authority the commitment the employer makes to the employee. When these 2 are not aligned, there is a continuous ‘overinvestment’ of the employee into her work.

Sometimes, the reason for not giving Authority is that it is very difficult to give somebody the (power of attorney/) authority, given the often legal requirements involved. That it is equally or more difficult to take away authority once given might be another consideration.

5. Requirements

Before an individual is appointed to a specific position, she has to fulfill certain requirements, which might range from educational ones to experience to sheer intelligence. (Some American high tech companies have a reputation for the latter.) In today’s world ‘everybody’s’ background to fulfill requirements is publicized on LinkedIn. With the exceptions of the Germans and the Chinese who have their own versions.

Together with Expectations and Responsibilities this generally forms the basis of a job description, which forms the basis for the last item in this row:

6. Remuneration

Often remuneration is not as much related to responsibility but to authority and requirements. To what degree neither of those have anything to do with remuneration but negotiating skills depends upon the individual company.