Read time: 3.1 min.

{{First Name | My friend}},

When my niece was about three years old, my mom and I were babysitting her at her home while her parents went out for dinner.

After bathtime, she came downstairs with me for a while since it wasn't yet her bedtime. We were playing when she suddenly ran upstairs to find my mom (her Mimi). A few minutes later, she reappeared at the bottom of the stairs.

"Aunt Shawnie, can I have a cookie?"

She had already had a few earlier, so I said no. I wasn’t being mean. I was trying to be responsible.

She considered my “no” for exactly two seconds before she said, "My Mimi says I can."

I smiled. "Then have a cookie."

What I didn't say out loud, but thought immediately, was this: I have authority over you tonight. But I don't have the authority to overrule my mom.

Here is what strikes me every time I think about that moment.

Nobody taught my niece that hierarchy. Nobody sat her down and explained that her grandmother's authority superseded her aunt's in that particular kitchen on that particular evening. She hadn't been briefed on the decision architecture. There was no org chart.

And yet she navigated it perfectly.

She didn't come to me without a plan. She had already been upstairs. She already had Mimi's approval in hand. When she asked me, she was extending a courtesy. And when that courtesy met a "no," she simply produced the authority she had already secured. She didn't argue or escalate. She didn't need to. The hierarchy was already settled.

The decision moved cleanly because the authority structure was clear, even to a three-year-old.

Now think about what would have happened if my mom hadn't been upstairs.

My niece would have had to work with what she had. Maybe she would have asked again, differently. Maybe she would have tried a new angle. Maybe she would have recruited the cat as moral support. The point is that without a clear authority above mine to appeal to, the path to resolution becomes longer, more creative, and considerably less efficient.

This is precisely what happens inside executive teams when authority boundaries aren't defined.

Capable leaders don't fight ambiguous authority structures. They work around them. They coordinate before moving. They align before deciding. They check in before acting. Each step feels reasonable in the moment. The relationship is good. Nobody is trying to create friction. And so the pattern becomes the norm: two conversations where one should have been enough, two signatures where one should have been sufficient, two people in the room for decisions that either of them could have made alone.

It doesn't look like a problem. It looks like collaboration.

But underneath it, something is quietly accumulating.

Last issue, we looked at what it costs when ownership and authority aren't clearly defined. This week, I want to go one level deeper.

Because ownership and authority are not the same question.

Ownership tells a leader what they are responsible for. Authority tells them how far they can go. When only the first is answered, the second doesn't disappear. It just gets resolved informally, in real time, through the coordination overhead that builds up quietly around every cross-functional decision.

The leaders closest to that gap absorb the cost. They do it professionally, willingly, and often without naming it. Because that is what committed leaders do inside systems that haven't given them what they need to move decisions cleanly.

My niece didn't have a coordination problem. She had a clear authority structure and she used it. In thirty seconds, she had her answer and her cookie.

The question worth sitting with isn't whether your team knows what they own.

It's whether they know how far that ownership reaches — and what happens when it runs into someone else's.

To every mother reading this, thank you. The way you see what others miss, ask the question underneath the question, and hold things together with quiet precision is not lost on the people around you. We love you and thank you for all of your love, commitment, and self-sacrifice.

And to everyone who has been shaped by a mother, a grandmother, or anyone who loved you with that particular kind of steadiness, I hope you have the opportunity to express your love and appreciation today.

Until Next Sunday,

Shawnette Rochelle, MBA, PCC
Founder, Excellence Unbounded
Decision Alignment for Executive Teams

If you’re curious to learn more about my work with executive teams, you can find it here.

If you want to have a conversation to learn more, schedule it here.