Who decides, who executes and who answers for the result: the architecture of processes and responsibility

My professional insights · Lyudmil Karaulanov · 13 min read

Published: 3 August 2026 · Version 1.0

A task can pass through many good specialists and still remain unfinished. Everyone has checked their part, but no one has understood that they must make the final decision. Or the reverse: the person accountable for the result is the last to learn that someone has already changed the terms.

For me, the conversation about processes starts with this difficulty: people need a clear understanding of how far their authority to act extends, when they must involve someone else and who will take up the issue if an obstacle arises.

When everyone participates but no one is accountable

An omission can occur even when every participant is competent, if responsibility for connecting the tasks has not been clearly assigned. That is precisely why the overall result needs a person accountable for it.

One person prepares the information. Another checks it. A third provides an opinion. A fourth approves. A fifth executes. Each holds part of the process, but no one monitors whether the final result has been achieved correctly and on time. This is the difference between participation and accountability. A participant performs a particular action. The person accountable for the result monitors the entire sequence, deviations, deadlines and the need for intervention.

A well-organised business can answer several fundamental questions clearly:

• Who proposes the decision?
• Who checks its assumptions and risks?
• Who is authorised to approve it?
• Who organises implementation?
• Who monitors the final result?
• Who is obliged to stop the process in the event of a significant deviation?

When these roles are undefined, the process is driven by personal arrangements, memory and assumptions. This can work in a small team while everyone is close to the founder and knows the unwritten rules. As the business grows, it becomes harder for newcomers to reconstruct the same unwritten understanding, and the risk of divergence increases.

The managing director and the limits of delegation

The managing director cannot do everything personally. Their job is to organise the system, not to be its busiest implementer.

They can assign tasks, grant operational autonomy and authorise certain decisions. Delegation does not, however, release them from responsibility for choosing suitable people, defining the framework and establishing reasonable control. It is important to distinguish several levels:

• performing a specific task;
• the right to choose how it is performed;
• the authority to incur an expense or take a risk;
• the duty to report;
• oversight of the final result.

A managing director who does not delegate retains every decision personally. This slows the organisation, disempowers people and turns their own time into the principal obstacle to growth.

A managing director who delegates without a framework creates the opposite risk. Employees act, but do not know the extent of their authority, when they must seek approval or what obligations they can assume on the company's behalf.

A good governance structure does not choose between complete centralisation and complete freedom. It defines which decisions remain at the top and which can be taken close to where the work is done.

When partners manage from the sidelines

It is natural for an owner to take an interest and intervene when they see a problem. But a direct instruction to an employee can bypass the managing director, who will later have to answer for the result. The right to exercise ownership oversight and the arrangements for day-to-day decisions are therefore two different things.

Formally, the managing director may be an independent governing body. In practice, however, partners often instruct employees, negotiate with customers, agree terms with suppliers or block operational decisions. A dual authority emerges. The managing director bears overall responsibility, but some decisions take shape outside their control. Employees receive conflicting instructions. A partner influences the process without their involvement appearing in the decision trail.

Informal power is particularly dangerous. It allows someone to determine the result and, when adverse consequences arise, hide behind the claim that they were not the body that made the decision. Influence without visible responsibility is one of the riskiest forms of power within a company.

For me, therefore, ownership matters and management matters need a clear boundary. Partners determine the overall direction, capital decisions and the framework for significant risk. The managing director organises ongoing operations and is accountable for their execution. Where prior approval by the partners is needed, explicit, traceable approval limited to a predetermined range of decisions works best. Otherwise, the company lives with two systems of governance: one on paper and another in reality.

An employee's responsibility has natural limits

Before asking someone to account for their work, it is fair to examine what they had at their disposal. Did they have the information, resources and authority to change what was necessary? If those conditions were controlled by others, assessing their work must take that dependence into account.

When an employee receives conflicting instructions from several managers, their responsibility inevitably becomes blurred. The same happens when they must complete a task but cannot reach the person who can resolve the problem that has arisen.

Delegated responsibility makes sense when accompanied by:

• the necessary authority;
• access to information;
• a realistic deadline;
• appropriate resources;
• the right to ask a question;
• the ability to escalate a problem;
• protection if they refuse a clearly risky or unlawful action.

If these conditions are absent, the organisation is not delegating responsibility. It is passing down the consequences of decisions made elsewhere. This is a common management defect: power stays above while blame moves downwards.

Visible responsibility

Many companies rely on the shared belief that everyone “knows what they are supposed to do”. That is not a system. It is a temporary equilibrium sustained by personal relationships, habit and memory.

A clear structure of responsibility does not necessarily require cumbersome job descriptions and thick internal rulebooks. It requires the essentials to be stated unambiguously. For every important role, it is useful to clarify:

• what result it is accountable for;
• what decisions it can make independently;
• what resources it can use;
• when approval is required;
• to whom it reports and within what time frame;
• who provides cover;
• when it must stop the process and seek a decision at a higher level.

This can be expressed through internal rules, an authority matrix, a process description, approval limits, checklists and clear cover arrangements. The form is secondary. What matters is that the person knows not only what is expected of them, but also what they are authorised to decide, when they must seek help and by what result they will be assessed.

The process as a safeguard against error

A well-designed process does not assume that people will never make mistakes. It accepts error as an unavoidable possibility and places safeguards before it leads to irreversible consequences.

A process may require an additional check for a large expense, legal review before signing, financial approval before assuming an obligation, or a separation between the person authorising a payment and the person making it. It may include an automatic alert when a limit is exceeded, mandatory escalation of a deviation or a record of every exception to the general rule.

The aim is not to eliminate human judgement. It is to prevent one mistake from passing freely through the entire organisation. A weak process relies on the individual's attention. A strong process accepts that someone may overlook something, become tired, be misled or work with incomplete information. It therefore creates a second line of defence.

When the process becomes an alibi

Consider an employee who has completed every step but sees an obvious risk. A good process tells them how to stop it or refer it for a decision without unilaterally assuming someone else's authority. Formally correct execution should not leave them unable to raise a warning.

A good system includes both the right and the duty to stop. When an unusual deviation, a serious risk or a conflict between the formal rule and the company's interests arises, the person knows:

• when they can stop execution;
• whom they must notify;
• who makes the final decision;
• how the deviation is recorded;
• how an employee who has identified the risk in good faith is protected.

A process does not remove the need to think. It creates a framework in which professional judgement can be exercised in time.

Processes as the infrastructure of growth

Processes are more than protection against mistakes. They are a condition of growth.

As long as every decision depends on the founder's personal involvement, the business can grow only to the limits of their time, attention and memory. As long as knowledge is confined to individuals, every departure carries the risk of losing capability. As long as tasks are performed through verbal arrangements, quality depends on exactly who is at work that day.

A process turns personal experience into organisational knowledge. When an activity is described, tested and made into a repeatable model, newcomers find their feet faster. Delegation becomes more secure. Errors can be understood and corrected systematically. Work can pass between people and departments without losing the reasoning accumulated along the way.

The process thus frees the managing director from having to act as a constant intermediary in every action. It does not eliminate management. It allows management to move from detailed control to strategic decisions.

Excessive process also destroys responsibility

There comes a point at which another signature no longer adds a useful check. It merely delays the work and allows everyone to assume that someone else has assessed the substance. In my view, control belongs where the risk justifies it; elsewhere, genuine autonomy is better.

Excessive procedure also creates a particular form of irresponsibility. Everyone performs their step, but no one cares about the final result. People begin defending formal compliance rather than the company's interests.

Control therefore makes sense when proportionate to risk. Small, reversible decisions can be taken close to where the work is done. Significant, irreversible and high-risk decisions require greater scrutiny and approval. A good procedure does not complicate every action. It places more protection where a mistake would be harder to repair.

Where is the point of instability?

What this concept means →

It lies in the separation between the right to decide and the obligation to answer for the result. Without this connection, detailed job descriptions may exist and it may still be unclear who should act.

A well-organised process helps people bear responsibility within their actual capabilities. It accepts error as a human possibility, provides the necessary checks and leaves a clear route for responding to an unexpected event. Growth then does not require every subsequent task to be resolved personally by the owner all over again.

This material is of a general analytical nature and does not constitute individual legal, tax, financial or investment advice.