Ganesh HS ·
A finance head told me his company had delegation. When I asked what he could approve without the managing director, he thought about it and said it depended on the item. That is not delegation — it is a set of individual precedents that everyone is quietly interpreting.
An authority matrix replaces the interpretation with a page. It is among the least glamorous documents a business can produce and among the highest-return, because it converts a queue of decisions into a set of routes.
Everything that currently waits for someone. In a fifty-to-two-hundred person business that is usually six categories.
DECISION ROLE LIMIT DEPUTY
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Leave up to 3 days Reporting mgr - Function head
Leave 4-10 days Function head - Founder
Leave beyond 10 days Founder - -
Attendance regularisation Reporting mgr N per month Function head
Overtime sanction Function head N hrs/month Founder
Hiring against approved plan Function head - Founder
Hiring outside plan Founder - -
Offer issue HR within band Founder
Salary outside band Founder - -
Confirmation Function head - Founder
Purchase (budgeted) Function head up to ___ Founder
Purchase (unbudgeted) Founder - -
Salary advance Function head up to ___ Founder
Reimbursement Reporting mgr up to ___ Function head
Price / discount exception Sales head up to __% Founder
Policy exception Founder - -
Rule 1: every row has a deputy. A row without one routes to
the founder the first week someone is on leave.
Rule 2: roles, never names. Names change; the matrix should not.Lower than feels comfortable, at first. The instinct is to set generous limits so the matrix genuinely reduces the queue, and the risk of that is a decision you would have wanted to see. Setting them low has the opposite failure — the queue does not shorten much — but it is recoverable in a way the first is not.
Raise them after a quarter, using the evidence. If a function head approved eleven purchases under the limit and none was questioned, the limit is too low and you now know by how much.
This is the rule that most matrices miss and it is why they fail within a month. The first time the named role is on leave, a row without a deputy routes straight back to the founder — and once it has routed there twice, everyone learns that the matrix is advisory.
Where a row genuinely belongs with the owner, say so explicitly. What must not exist is an unwritten default in which anything unclear arrives at the top. Unclear items should have a named role for deciding what to do with them.
Start from evidence rather than theory. Take last month's approvals — the messages, the mails, the signatures — and list what actually needed a decision. That list is the matrix's first draft, and it is both faster and more accurate than designing from a framework.
Then fill only the rows that occurred. A matrix covering situations that have never arisen is a matrix nobody reads. Add rows as new situations appear; that is the normal way these documents mature.
Brief function heads separately and first, because they are gaining authority and will be asked about it immediately. Then circulate it. The matrix is not confidential — an employee knowing who can approve their advance is the entire point.
Expect the first challenge within a fortnight. Somebody will bring an item directly to the founder that the matrix places elsewhere, usually because it is urgent. Redirecting that first one is what establishes whether the page is real. Making an exception for it, once, is how most matrices die.
The matrix is one output of organisation design work — the others being reporting lines and what each role owns — and it is usually the one that changes daily life fastest, because it does not require anybody to move or be retitled.
It also makes several other things possible. Policies become applicable, because a rule that says leave is approved by the manager now has a manager with an actual limit. Payroll input arrives on time, because approvals no longer queue behind one person. And job descriptions get sharper, since a role with written approval authority is far easier to describe — which is why role design and job descriptions work tends to follow immediately after the matrix rather than before it.
Review it once a year, and whenever the structure changes. A matrix that still names a role the business no longer has is worse than none, because it teaches people that the document is out of date and everything in it is negotiable. That annual review is part of what keeps organisation design decisions alive rather than historical.
Two things, worth saying plainly so the matrix is not oversold. It does not make a manager capable of the decision it hands them — a function head who has never set a salary will not become good at it because a row says they may. And it does not settle what a role owns, only what it may approve, which are different questions that businesses routinely conflate.
The first is a development question. Most authority handed to a first-time function head lands better if it comes with a conversation about how the decision should be reasoned, not just a limit — the gap leadership and people management training exists to close.
A delegation matrix has a shelf life nobody plans for. Thresholds set when the business was turning over a certain amount become absurd two years later, and the absurdity is discovered at an inconvenient moment.
The visible symptom is a manager escalating something trivial because the number says they must, while everyone in the room can see it is not worth the meeting. The invisible symptom is worse: people quietly stop applying the thresholds they consider unreasonable, and once that starts the matrix is no longer describing how decisions are actually made.
An annual review takes under an hour and needs only two questions per row. Did anything in this category get escalated that should not have, and did anything get decided at this level that should have come up? The answers are usually known immediately by the people in the room.
It is also worth reviewing after any significant change in scale or structure — a new site, an acquisition, a doubling of headcount — rather than waiting for the calendar. A matrix that has not been touched since it was written is generally being followed selectively, and selective application is harder to detect and more damaging than an out-of-date document everyone knows is out of date.
The second is why the matrix and the job description are usually written in the same week. A role that may approve purchases up to a limit but has no stated accountability for what is purchased is half-defined, and the half that is missing is the one that matters at appraisal time.
No. An employee should be able to see who approves their advance or their leave, and a matrix kept confidential loses most of its value — people cannot route requests correctly if they cannot see the routes.
That is usually a sign the limit is set without enough context rather than a sign the person is unready. Reviewing their first month's decisions together resolves it more often than reducing the limit does.
One page. A matrix that runs to several pages is describing situations that have not arisen, and it stops being consulted. Add rows as real situations appear rather than anticipating them all.
Usually one matrix with location-specific rows where the roles genuinely differ. Separate matrices per site drift apart quickly and then produce exactly the inconsistency the document was written to remove.
Treat the first instance as a process question rather than a conduct one — most breaches happen because the limit was unclear or the deputy was unavailable. A pattern from the same person is a different conversation.
Structure, roles, policy, performance and reward.
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