Roles and Structure
Clarifying Roles and Building Organizational Structure
Growing businesses often need more than additional people. They need a better understanding of the work already being done, where responsibility belongs, and which roles the organization actually requires.
Across my coaching and consulting work, I have seen several versions of the same broader problem. Capable people are keeping the organization functioning, but responsibilities have accumulated around them without enough attention to whether the arrangement still makes sense.
The following are composites drawn from multiple real executive coaching and consulting engagements. The patterns, work, and representative results reflect actual client work, but no single client experienced these exact situations or sequences. Identifying and contextual details have been changed or combined to protect confidentiality.
One Employee Was Actually Carrying Several Roles
The Problem
Sometimes replacing an employee turns out to be a much larger question than filling a vacancy.
Across several engagements, capable employees had accumulated responsibilities well beyond their formal positions. Administrative work, operational questions, supervision, financial oversight, and shared systems had moved toward them because they were organized, dependable, and able to solve problems.
The arrangement could look successful while the person remained in place. Work was getting done, so there was little immediate reason to examine how much depended on that employee.
An anticipated departure made the question harder to avoid. Leadership could replace the formal position without replacing much of the work the person had actually been carrying.
How We Worked Through It
We separated the employee's formal role from the responsibilities that had accumulated around it.
That meant looking at what the person actually handled, which responsibilities belonged together, and which had ended up there simply because the employee could carry them. We also examined what would happen to that work after the departure.
Part of the work involved protecting the incoming employee's role. Responsibilities outside the intended function needed a deliberate home rather than automatically becoming part of the replacement's job.
We also distinguished work belonging inside individual operating areas from responsibilities requiring organization-wide leadership. The question became what roles the organization needed, rather than how to find another person willing and able to do everything.
Representative Results
- A review of one departing employee's workload established that the person had been carrying responsibilities large enough to represent three different roles.
- Leadership identified two additional formal positions instead of expecting one replacement to inherit the entire workload.
- The incoming leader entered a focused role without inheriting the predecessor's collection of unrelated responsibilities.
- Organization-wide systems and infrastructure gained a defined leadership home rather than remaining attached to whoever had previously handled them.
Strong Employees Kept Inheriting Work That Did Not Belong to Them
The Problem
In several engagements, the most dependable employees were carrying work that had little to do with their primary responsibilities.
When something was missed, they handled it. When coverage was unreliable, they stepped in. When nobody clearly owned a responsibility, they became the person everyone expected to take care of it.
Each individual decision could make sense. The immediate problem was solved by someone capable of solving it.
Over time, however, those employees became responsible for both their own work and the gaps elsewhere in the organization. Their ability to compensate made it easier for leadership to leave the underlying arrangement unchanged.
How We Worked Through It
We looked at the work strong employees were carrying and why it had reached them.
Some responsibilities belonged in their roles. Others belonged in administration, operations, another functional area, or a position the organization had not yet properly defined.
We worked through where those responsibilities should live and what would be required to move them. Removing work from a capable employee was not especially useful if nobody else had the responsibility, information, or authority to carry it.
The owner also had to stop treating dependability as a sufficient reason to keep assigning more. Part of the work involved addressing the arrangements that repeatedly created the extra burden rather than asking the same reliable people to keep absorbing it.
Representative Results
- Senior employees shed responsibilities that belonged elsewhere and spent less time compensating for gaps outside their own roles.
- A new full-time position was created to absorb appropriate responsibilities that had been spread across other employees.
- Scheduling and administrative coordination gained clearer ownership instead of repeatedly falling to whoever could step in.
A Long-Standing Role No Longer Fit the Business
The Problem
A role can continue existing long after the business has outgrown the arrangement behind it.
Across several engagements, positions that had worked at an earlier stage no longer provided the coverage, coordination, documentation, or level of responsibility the organization needed.
The company had adapted around the gaps. Other employees picked up unfinished work, managers carried responsibility without enough authority, and owners remained involved in matters that should have been handled elsewhere.
History made the situation harder to address. A person could have contributed meaningfully for years while occupying a role that no longer served the business well. Those two facts were easy to combine into a reason to keep the arrangement in place.
How We Worked Through It
We began with what the business needed now.
That meant examining the actual work, the coverage required, the responsibilities being carried elsewhere, and the authority needed to manage the function properly. Defining those requirements gave us a better basis for evaluating the existing arrangement.
We also separated respect for an employee's contribution from the question of whether the role still worked. The organization did not have to dismiss the past in order to design for its current needs.
Where a transition was necessary, we worked through the replacement structure before completing it. Responsibilities needed to be assigned, important documentation needed to be transferable, and other employees needed to know how the new arrangement would function.
Representative Results
- A new full-time position was created around responsibilities the business needed carried rather than preserving the previous arrangement.
- Administrative coverage became more dependable, with clearer ownership of scheduling and coordination.
- The operational leader gained greater authority over work that leader was already expected to manage.
- Important documentation became easier for another employee to understand and take over.
- Senior employees spent less time covering the old arrangement's gaps, giving the owner more room to focus on growth, hiring, and key relationships.
Critical Knowledge Was Trapped with One Person
The Problem
Some recurring work is dependable only as long as a particular employee remains available.
Important records, routines, unfinished responsibilities, and practical knowledge may be maintained in ways that make sense to that person but are difficult for anyone else to understand or inherit.
Across several engagements, this dependence became more visible when an employee prepared to leave or became unavailable. Leadership needed to know what had been completed, what remained unresolved, and who could take over.
The problem was not simply that an employee knew a great deal. It was that the organization had no dependable way to carry important parts of that knowledge without the person.
How We Worked Through It
We looked at which responsibilities and records depended most heavily on one employee's memory, personal system, or explanation.
The purpose was not to document everything someone knew. We focused on recurring work and important information another person would need in order to take responsibility without continually returning to the original employee.
We also examined where that work should live after it became transferable. Better documentation would not solve the problem if nobody had been assigned to use it or carry the responsibility.
During transitions, we worked through the responsibilities outside the employee's formal role as well as the obvious duties of the position. Those less visible responsibilities were often where the greatest dependence had developed.
Representative Results
- Important records became easier for another employee to understand and take over instead of depending on one person's private system.
- Responsibilities outside a departing employee's formal role were documented and redirected rather than remaining an unwritten collection of work.
- Shared systems and infrastructure gained an assigned leadership home, giving the organization a defined place for responsibility beyond the departing employee.
- Work became more visible, allowing problems and missed follow-up to surface earlier instead of remaining hidden until a key person became unavailable.
Helping Had Quietly Become Permanent Ownership
The Problem
A willingness to help can gradually become an expectation to keep carrying the work.
Across several engagements, employees had stepped in because something needed to happen. They solved an immediate problem, covered a gap, or helped another part of the organization.
The responsibility then stayed with them. Nobody deliberately redesigned the role, but others began expecting the same person to handle the work again.
This was particularly difficult in organizations where commitment and mutual support were important cultural values. Employees could feel responsible for helping without having a practical way to distinguish temporary assistance from taking ownership of an ongoing function.
How We Worked Through It
We worked through the difference between helping with something and becoming responsible for it.
That required looking at recurring work, where it logically belonged, and whether the person currently handling it had taken it on temporarily or was actually the right person to own it.
We also examined what employees and leaders should do when they encountered work without a clear home. Sometimes helping meant completing an urgent task. Sometimes it meant bringing attention to the gap and helping establish who should carry it going forward.
The organization still needed flexibility. The work was to preserve that flexibility while making sure repeated assistance did not quietly become a permanent addition to someone's role.
Representative Results
- An incoming leader maintained the boundaries of a newly focused role rather than gradually inheriting the predecessor's unrelated responsibilities.
- Work outside that role was documented and redirected to other organizational functions.
- Senior employees stopped serving as the permanent solution to the same unresolved role gaps.
- Organization-wide systems responsibilities remained deliberately assigned rather than drifting back toward whichever capable employee was willing to help.
The Company Was Hiring Because Everyone Felt Overloaded
The Problem
Feeling overloaded can be a reason to examine staffing, but it does not tell leadership which position to hire.
Across several engagements, employees and owners were carrying more than they could comfortably manage. Some of that pressure reflected real growth. Some came from overlapping responsibilities, unreliable coverage, and work that had never been given a proper home.
Those conditions could look similar from the inside. Everyone was busy, important work still needed attention, and another employee appeared to be the obvious answer.
Without examining the work first, however, the organization risked adding someone to an arrangement it did not yet understand.
How We Worked Through It
We looked at what work existed, who was carrying it, and why it was creating pressure.
That included the responsibilities inside formal roles as well as the extra work employees had accumulated because they were capable, available, or willing to help.
We worked through what could be reassigned, where responsibility needed to become more explicit, and which needs genuinely required another position. In some situations, that revealed several distinct functions inside what had appeared to be one job. In others, it helped define a focused role that could relieve pressure across the organization.
The hiring question became more specific. Leadership could consider what the new employee should actually own and how that position would fit alongside the people already in place.
Representative Results
- A review of one employee's workload identified enough distinct work to justify two additional formal positions alongside the original function.
- A new full-time position was created to carry appropriate responsibilities that other employees had been covering around a role mismatch.
- Responsibilities were separated across administration, service delivery, operations, and ownership rather than remaining an overlapping collection of work.
- Leadership began defining hiring needs by the work a role should own instead of simply adding people because everyone felt overloaded.