When work quietly becomes yours (and you never agreed to it)
Responsibility in most organisations doesn’t transfer in a clean, formal way.
There’s rarely a moment where someone says:
“From now on, this sits with you.”
No clear handover.
No explicit agreement.
Instead, responsibility moves gradually, through small, practical decisions made in the moment.
It usually starts with something minor.
A message that lacks clarity.
A detail that’s slightly off.
A task left unresolved just long enough to become noticeable.
And if you’re someone who notices quickly - and acts - you step in.
The action itself is small.
You clarify a point.
You fix a loose end.
You make a decision slightly earlier than necessary to keep things moving.
At the time, it feels efficient.
You’re not taking ownership.
You’re preventing friction.
But this is how it begins.
The next time something similar happens, it reaches you more quickly.
Not because anyone planned it that way.
Because it worked before.
By the third or fourth time, the pattern is established.
You’re included earlier.
Copied in sooner.
Asked - often indirectly - to “take a look.”
Nothing about this feels unreasonable.
In fact, it feels like a natural continuation of what’s already happened.
Which is exactly why it goes unnoticed.
There’s no clear moment where you move from being helpful to being responsible.
Only repetition.
And repetition removes the need for a decision.
At some point, it’s no longer a question of whether you’ll handle something.
It’s assumed that you will.
Not because it was assigned to you…
but because the alternative has never been tested.
The subtle shift most organisations iss
If you step back and look at how work actually flows through a business, there’s often a quiet imbalance.
Certain individuals become central points of resolution.
Not formally, but operationally.
They are the ones things default to.
They pick up ambiguity.
They resolve gaps.
They keep things moving across unclear ownership lines.
Individually, each action makes sense.
Collectively, it creates concentration.
Work that should be distributed becomes centralised.
Responsibility that should be defined becomes assumed.
And because outcomes remain good - often better in the short term - this rarely gets challenged.
From the outside, everything appears to function effectively.
Which means the underlying structure goes unexamined.
Why this becomes a business problem
At an individual level, this looks like overload.
At an organisational level, it’s something else entirely:
a structural dependency risk.
When responsibility accumulates informally:
· key individuals become bottlenecks
· decision-making concentrates unintentionally
· scalability reduces
· accountability becomes unclear
The business starts to rely on people instead of structure.
And while that can work in early or fast-moving environments, it doesn’t scale cleanly.
It also creates hidden fragility.
If those individuals step back - or are removed - the system struggles to compensate.
Where control actually sits
The key distinction is simple:
What needs to be done versus what needs to be done by a specific person
Addressing this doesn’t require heavy intervention.
It requires:
· recognising transfer points earlier
· creating slight friction in default ownership
· reinforcing responsibility at the correct level
Over time, these small adjustments reshape how work flows.
The role of leadership and advisory
At Kentish and Co, much of our work sits in this space:
· identifying where responsibility has accumulated informally
· separating efficiency from ownership
· helping leadership teams rebalance how work is distributed
Not through heavy restructuring but through targeted, practical adjustments that restore clarity.
Practical takeaways
· Pay attention to where work defaults, not just where it’s assigned
· Distinguish between efficiency and ownership
· Address patterns early
Final thought
Most organisations don’t struggle because work isn’t being done.
They struggle because it isn’t always clear who it truly belongs to.
© Kentish and Co 2026