Accountability Without Authority, What It Cost Me and What I Learned

The room went quiet when the Chairman asked, ‘Why did you give Tim sole responsibility for this when you’d rated him ‘unsatisfactory’ for years?’ That wasn’t a question of curiosity; it was the moment the Official Record and the Operating Truth collided. I had been trusted to run the business, but I hadn’t been given the authority to make the calls. That mismatch turned a project into a mess.