21 Crucial Lessons on Who Must Do What Lencioni

"Who must do what?" is the sixth and final of Patrick Lencioni's six critical questions for creating organisational clarity. In The Advantage, Lencioni argues that once a leadership team has answered the first five questions, covering purpose, values, business definition, strategy, and the thematic goal, it must clarify roles and responsibilities so that every leader knows exactly what they are accountable for and where one person's responsibility ends and another's begins.

Role clarity sounds straightforward, but Lencioni observed that most leadership teams have significant gaps and overlaps in how they understand their respective responsibilities. Two leaders may both believe they own a particular decision. A critical function may fall between departments with no clear owner. These ambiguities create confusion, duplication, dropped balls, and interpersonal tension that undermines everything the team has built.

The question "Who must do what?" is not about writing detailed job descriptions. It is about ensuring that the leadership team has explicit clarity about the division of labour at the top of the organisation. When leaders understand and respect each other's areas of responsibility, decisions happen faster, accountability is clearer, and collaboration is more effective.

Below are 21 crucial lessons on answering this question effectively. For a complete overview of all six questions, see our Six Questions of Clarity summary. To discuss how a facilitated offsite could help your team clarify roles, reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org.

1. Role Clarity Prevents Turf Wars

When roles and responsibilities are unclear, leaders naturally expand into ambiguous territory. Two leaders may both claim ownership of a strategic initiative, leading to conflict, duplicated effort, and wasted resources. Conversely, tasks that fall between clearly defined roles may go unaddressed because each leader assumes the other is handling them.

Clear role definition prevents both problems. When every leader knows exactly what they own and what their colleagues own, the energy that would otherwise go into territorial disputes can be directed toward productive work. For Lencioni's deeper exploration of turf wars, see our Silos summary.

2. This Is Not About Job Descriptions

Lencioni is clear that answering "Who must do what?" is not about creating detailed job descriptions or organisational charts. It is about having an explicit conversation among the leadership team about the broad areas of responsibility each leader owns. The focus is on clarity at the top, not bureaucratic documentation.

The conversation matters more than the document. When leaders sit together and discuss where their responsibilities begin and end, they surface assumptions and misunderstandings that no written document could reveal. The value is in the dialogue itself, not in the output.

3. Leaders Must Be Comfortable Asking About Each Other's Work

In a healthy organisation, members of the leadership team understand each other's roles well enough to ask informed questions. They are comfortable stepping into conversations about areas outside their own expertise because they understand how their colleagues' work connects to the team's shared goals.

This cross-functional curiosity is only possible when roles are clearly defined. When leaders are unsure about each other's responsibilities, they avoid asking questions for fear of stepping on toes. Clear role definition paradoxically creates more cross-functional engagement, not less.

4. Role Clarity Builds on the First Five Questions

"Who must do what?" is the sixth question for a reason. It requires the answers to the first five questions as context. How you divide roles depends on what the organisation does, how it will succeed, and what is most important right now. Without that context, role assignments are arbitrary. With it, they are strategic.

This sequencing means that role clarity should be one of the final topics addressed during a leadership offsite. The team should first align on purpose, values, business definition, strategy, and the thematic goal before discussing who is responsible for what. For a guide on the preceding question, see our What Is Most Important article.

5. Division of Labour Reduces Bottlenecks

When the leadership team has clarity about who owns what, decisions do not need to flow through a single person or wait for committee consensus. Each leader can make decisions within their area of responsibility with confidence, knowing that their colleagues trust them to act in the team's best interest.

This distributed decision-making is essential for organisational speed. Bottlenecks form when decisions pile up on one desk because no one else has the authority or clarity to act. Role clarity distributes authority and enables the organisation to move faster without sacrificing alignment.

6. Identify Overlaps and Gaps

One of the most practical exercises for answering "Who must do what?" is to have each leader list what they believe their responsibilities are and then compare lists. The overlaps, where two leaders claim the same responsibility, and the gaps, where no one claims a responsibility, become immediately visible.

These overlaps and gaps are the source of most organisational friction at the leadership level. Addressing them explicitly, rather than letting them persist as unspoken tensions, removes a significant barrier to team effectiveness and creates the clarity that accountability requires.

7. Role Clarity Enables Peer Accountability

Accountability requires clarity. You cannot hold someone accountable for something they did not know they owned. When roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and publicly agreed upon, peer accountability becomes straightforward. Each leader knows what they committed to, and their colleagues can hold them to those commitments without ambiguity.

Without role clarity, accountability conversations become defensive. "I did not know that was my responsibility" is a legitimate defence when roles have never been explicitly discussed. Clear role definition removes this defence and creates the foundation for genuine accountability. For more on this dynamic, see our peer accountability guide.

8. The Leader Must Facilitate the Conversation

The CEO or team leader must facilitate the role clarity conversation. This involves asking each leader to describe their understanding of their own role and their colleagues' roles, surfacing discrepancies, and guiding the team toward explicit agreement. The leader must also be willing to make final decisions about role ownership when the team cannot reach consensus.

This facilitation requires both courage and nuance. The leader must be willing to tell a leader that a particular responsibility belongs to someone else, even when that conversation is uncomfortable. The goal is organisational clarity, not individual comfort.

9. Roles May Shift with the Thematic Goal

Because the thematic goal changes every three to twelve months, the relative emphasis of different roles may shift as well. When the thematic goal is "Launch into Education," the head of business development may take on responsibilities that normally sit with the head of marketing. When the goal shifts, responsibilities may shift back.

This flexibility requires that the team revisit role clarity regularly, particularly when the thematic goal changes. Static role definitions in a dynamic environment create the same confusion that no role definitions do. The team must be willing to adapt roles to serve the current priority.

10. Respect Each Other's Areas of Ownership

Once roles are defined, leaders must respect each other's areas of ownership. This means not making decisions in a colleague's area without consulting them, not undermining a colleague's authority with their direct reports, and not publicly second-guessing decisions that fall within someone else's domain.

Respecting role boundaries does not mean avoiding input. Leaders should absolutely share perspectives and challenge each other's thinking. But there is a difference between offering input and overriding authority. Clear role definition makes this distinction possible.

11. Role Clarity Reduces Political Behaviour

Organisational politics thrive in ambiguity. When it is unclear who owns a decision, people lobby, form alliances, and manoeuvre for influence. When role ownership is explicit, there is less room for political behaviour because everyone knows who has the authority to decide.

This does not eliminate healthy debate. Leaders should still advocate for their perspectives. But the debate occurs within a clear framework of authority, not in a political vacuum where the most persuasive or persistent voice wins regardless of role.

12. Every Critical Function Needs One Clear Owner

For every critical function, initiative, or decision area, there should be one clear owner on the leadership team. This does not mean that person works alone. It means they are accountable for the outcome, they coordinate the effort, and they make the final call when the team cannot reach consensus.

Shared ownership sounds collaborative but often produces the opposite: diffused accountability where no one feels personally responsible. Single ownership with collaborative input is the model that produces both accountability and teamwork.

13. Clarify Decision Rights

Part of answering "Who must do what?" is clarifying decision rights. For each major type of decision, the team should know: who makes the final call, who must be consulted, and who simply needs to be informed. This clarity prevents the bottlenecks and frustrations that arise when decision rights are assumed rather than explicit.

Decision rights are particularly important for cross-functional decisions where multiple leaders have a legitimate stake. Without explicit decision rights, these decisions either stall (because no one feels authorised to act) or create conflict (because multiple people try to act simultaneously).

14. Address the Gaps Nobody Wants to Own

Every organisation has responsibilities that nobody wants to own, often because they are difficult, unglamorous, or politically sensitive. These orphaned responsibilities are among the most important to assign explicitly because they represent the work that would otherwise go undone.

The leader must be willing to assign these responsibilities even when no one volunteers. The conversation may be uncomfortable, but the alternative is worse. Unowned responsibilities become organisational liabilities that grow more damaging the longer they remain unaddressed.

15. Role Clarity Supports Cascading Communication

When the leadership team makes decisions and needs to communicate them to the broader organisation, role clarity ensures that each leader knows exactly which messages they are responsible for delivering. This prevents the common problem where important messages fall through the cracks because each leader assumed someone else was communicating them.

Cascading communication is one of Lencioni's key disciplines for organisational health. It depends on each leader knowing not only their own area of responsibility but also which aspects of the team's decisions they are responsible for communicating to their respective departments.

16. Use the Organisational Playbook to Document Roles

Lencioni recommends that the answers to all six questions, including role clarity, be documented in a simple organisational playbook. This one-page or two-page document captures the team's agreements about purpose, values, strategy, the thematic goal, and who is responsible for what. It becomes the reference document that keeps the team aligned.

The playbook should be simple enough that every leader can reference it easily and specific enough that ambiguities are resolved. It is reviewed regularly, updated when circumstances change, and used as the foundation for team meetings and accountability conversations.

17. Do Not Assume Role Clarity Exists

Most leaders assume that role clarity already exists on their team. Lencioni's experience suggests otherwise. When leadership teams are asked to independently describe each other's responsibilities, significant discrepancies almost always emerge. The assumption of clarity is often the biggest obstacle to achieving actual clarity.

The exercise of surfacing these discrepancies is one of the most valuable activities a leadership team can undertake. It transforms implicit assumptions into explicit agreements and replaces ambiguity with the kind of precision that high-performing teams require.

18. Role Clarity Reduces Conflict

Many interpersonal conflicts on leadership teams are actually role conflicts disguised as personality clashes. Two leaders who repeatedly disagree may simply have overlapping responsibilities that create structural competition. Clarifying roles often resolves the interpersonal tension without requiring any work on the relationship itself.

This insight is liberating because it reframes personal conflict as a structural problem with a structural solution. Rather than asking "Why can't these two people get along?" the question becomes "Where do their responsibilities overlap, and how can we clarify the boundaries?"

19. Cross-Functional Projects Need Temporary Role Agreements

When the team takes on cross-functional projects, temporary role agreements are essential. Who leads the project? Who provides support? Who makes the final call if the project team disagrees? These questions must be answered before the project begins, not discovered through trial and error during execution.

Temporary role agreements follow the same principles as permanent ones: single ownership, clear decision rights, and explicit accountability. The only difference is that they expire when the project is complete.

20. Role Clarity Empowers Rather Than Constrains

Some leaders fear that clearly defining roles will constrain their autonomy or limit their ability to contribute across the organisation. The opposite is true. When a leader knows exactly what they own, they can act with confidence and speed within their domain. They do not need to seek permission or navigate political dynamics to do their job.

Clear roles also free leaders to contribute outside their domain by invitation. When boundaries are clear, crossing them becomes a collaborative choice rather than an ambiguous intrusion. Role clarity creates both autonomy and collaboration.

21. Role Clarity Completes the Clarity Framework

"Who must do what?" is the final piece of Lencioni's clarity puzzle. With all six questions answered, the leadership team has a complete framework: why the organisation exists, how it behaves, what it does, how it will succeed, what is most important right now, and who is responsible for what. This comprehensive clarity is the foundation upon which organisational health is built.

Without role clarity, the other five answers remain theoretical. With it, the team has everything it needs to execute with alignment, accountability, and speed. The six questions are not independent. They form an integrated framework where each answer builds on and reinforces the others.

What to Do Next

Ask each member of your leadership team to independently list what they believe their own responsibilities are and what they believe each of their colleagues' responsibilities are. Compare lists in a team meeting. The overlaps and gaps that emerge will show you exactly where your role clarity needs work.

If you want help facilitating this conversation as part of a leadership team offsite, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Lencioni mean by "Who must do what?"

It is the sixth of Lencioni's six critical questions for organisational clarity. It addresses the division of labour at the leadership level, ensuring that every leader knows exactly what they are responsible for and where their responsibilities end and their colleagues' begin.

Why is role clarity the last of the six questions?

How you divide roles depends on the answers to the first five questions: why the organisation exists, how it behaves, what it does, how it will succeed, and what is most important right now. Without that context, role assignments are arbitrary rather than strategic.

How do you surface role overlaps on a leadership team?

Have each leader independently list their own responsibilities and their understanding of each colleague's responsibilities. Compare the lists in a team meeting. Discrepancies reveal overlaps (two people claiming the same responsibility) and gaps (responsibilities no one claims).

Does role clarity prevent collaboration?

No, it enables it. When boundaries are clear, leaders can contribute outside their domain by invitation rather than intrusion. Clear ownership with collaborative input produces both accountability and teamwork. Shared ownership often produces diffused accountability.

Should roles be documented?

Yes, but simply. Lencioni recommends capturing role clarity in the organisational playbook alongside the answers to the other five questions. The document should be concise, regularly reviewed, and updated when circumstances change. Detailed job descriptions are unnecessary.

How often should the team revisit role clarity?

At minimum, revisit role clarity when the thematic goal changes and at quarterly offsites. When circumstances shift significantly, such as a new team member joining, a restructure, or a major strategic change, an additional role clarity conversation is essential.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Brisbane-based leadership consultant, bestselling author, and Certified Working Genius Facilitator specialising in organisational health. His book, Step Up or Step Out, has sold over 10,000 copies globally and equips leaders with practical strategies for difficult conversations and conflict resolution.

Jonno hosts The Leadership Conversations Podcast, reaching listeners in over 150 countries across 230+ episodes. He works with CEOs, school principals, and executive teams across Australia, the USA, UK, Singapore, Canada, and India, delivering keynotes, workshops, executive team offsites, and facilitated strategic planning sessions using Patrick Lencioni's frameworks.

As a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, Jonno helps teams build both relational health and operational effectiveness. To discuss how Jonno can help your leadership team clarify roles and responsibilities, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

21 Powerful Tips on What Is Most Important Lencioni

Role clarity answers the question of who is responsible for what. But before you can assign responsibilities, you need to know what the team's top priority is. Our comprehensive guide to "What is most important right now?" covers 21 powerful tips on identifying and implementing a thematic goal that rallies your entire leadership team.

If the role clarity insights in this article helped you, the thematic goal guide will give you the priority framework that roles serve.

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