Leadership Saturation (aka Executive Load Collapse)

Senior leaders become the default resolution mechanism for problems that should be handled elsewhere.

The system routes volume, ambiguity, and risk upward faster than leaders can absorb it. Decision quality degrades, availability becomes sporadic, and leadership presence turns reactive.

Leadership's ability to think ahead.

Organizations design escalation paths but fail to design decision ceilings. Risk travels upward faster than authority travels downward.

• Executives praised for accessibility
• Responsiveness framed as leadership strength
• Overwork normalized as commitment
• Strategic drift attributed to market noise

The system applauds the behavior that is killing it.

• Strong leadership
• High engagement
• Flat hierarchy
• Hands-on management

In reality, it is structural overload.

• Executives approving routine actions
• Leaders attending operational meetings
• Strategy work repeatedly postponed
• Decisions revisited due to fatigue
• "Just run it by [leader]" becomes default language

When leaders are busy everywhere, they are effective nowhere.

• "We need more leaders"
• "Executives are stretched thin"
• "The org is moving fast"
• "This is just a busy quarter"
• "Leadership needs better time management"

Core error: The issue is not capacity. It is *misrouted responsibility*.

Hard limits on executive decision scope.

Not:

• Better calendars
• More assistants
• Smarter dashboards

But:

• Clear decision ownership below the executive level
• Leaders refusing routine escalations
• Error tolerance baked into lower layers
• Explicit redistribution of authority

If leaders are always available, the system will never mature.

Decision rights redistributed and nonessential inputs eliminated.

Reduce decision surface area immediately.

Upstream: FM-03 Responsibility Without Authority, FM-09 Over-Escalation

Downstream: FM-06 Exception Inflation, FM-12 Strategic Myopia