Interim Director of Operational Accountability Reset

Trace accountability through failures that recur

Review selected service failures, cost overruns and delayed decisions. Identify where several teams claim partial responsibility, where an owner lacks necessary information and where decisions depend on unacknowledged approval. Compare formal delegations with the way managers actually behave.

Leadership evidence in contested responsibility

Candidates should have senior operating or transformation experience with responsibility for cross-functional outcomes. They must describe a case where a nominally accountable manager lacked practical control and how the arrangement was repaired. The ability to challenge senior-level ambiguity constructively is essential.

Implement, test and maintain practical decision authority

Agree a small number of consequential accountability changes with the executive sponsor. Clarify boundaries, escalation and the relationship between functional standards and end-to-end outcomes. Adjust operating reviews and information access so that the new responsibilities can be exercised.

Test the changes through live cases. Where an owner still cannot act, resolve the constraint rather than simply reinforcing the expectation. Manage the approved implementation team and coordinate finance, people and technology dependencies. Formal changes to employment, reserved authorities or policy require the relevant approval.

Ensure managers know what they can decide, when they must consult and what requires escalation. Review incentives and objectives that could recreate the old behaviour. The director should reduce dependence on informal relationships, especially where those relationships conceal gaps in the operating model.

Success means fewer unresolved issues moving repeatedly between teams and more reliable decisions at the appropriate level. Handover must include clear delegations, accessible guidance and a mechanism for adjusting boundaries as work changes. The permanent leadership should be able to maintain the arrangement without a temporary coordinator translating every cross-functional disagreement. Remaining areas of shared responsibility must be explicit, with a practical way to resolve trade-offs rather than an expectation that collaboration alone will settle them.