The Strategy Mandate Is Expanding. The Authority Isn’t.
Something strange is happening to the strategy function in modern business.
It is being asked to own more of the organisation’s outcomes, without being given the power over the decisions that produce them.
For years, the direction of travel has been clear. Strategy teams have moved well beyond the traditional annual planning cycle. Today, they are often pulled into everything: AI, portfolio choices, geopolitical risk, and daily execution.
On the surface, this may look like progress. Strategy has earned a bigger seat at the table.
But is there a dangerous paradox emerging?
Deloitte’s latest Chief Strategy Officer Survey found that nearly two-thirds of CSOs now lead cross-functional transformation, and more than half lead agendas far beyond traditional strategy. Yet, just 35% co-lead or fully own decision-making on their organisation’s highest priorities.
Read those two findings together. The remit is expanding faster than the authority.
And that creates ahaurdle.
1. Accountability Without Authority
Imagine your strategy team looks at the data and uncovers a hard truth...the company is spreading its chips across too many priorities.
The analysis is clear. Three initiatives are creating massive value. Seven are consuming capital, management attention, and talent without producing returns. In the language of disciplined companies, it is time to put those seven on a "Stop-Doing" list.
The strategy team makes the case. They build the models. They challenge the assumptions.
But can they actually stop anything?
Usually, the answer gets messy. The underperforming initiatives belong to a specific business unit. A powerful executive has spent two years championing them. A team has been built. Budgets are locked in.
Suddenly, what looked like a logical strategy decision becomes a political battle. The strategy team is held responsible for fixing the portfolio, but they do not control the portfolio.
As strategy functions move closer to execution, the line between influence and ownership blurs.
2. The Trap of the Endless Mandate
There is an understandable reason this happens. The hardest problems facing leadership teams refuse to stay inside neat functional boxes.
AI is not just a technology question.
Geopolitical risk is not just a compliance question.
Transformation is not just an operations question.
Each of these is ultimately a question about choices, trade-offs, and where the organisation places its big bets. In other words: strategy.
Because strategy teams sit horizontally across the organisation rather than inside one specific silo, they become the natural orchestrator. But there is a hidden danger here. Every time an ambiguous problem appears, leadership dumps it onto the strategy function.
Eventually, the mandate becomes bloated:
Set the strategy.
Run the planning process.
Advise the CEO.
Challenge the business units.
Coordinate transformation.
Track execution.
Evaluate investments.
Figure out AI.
We often hear that modern strategy teams are being asked to do more, but they are already being asked to do too much.
3. The Hedgehog Principle vs. The Fragmented Team
In our community, we often hear about the extreme focus great tams need. We heard one executive refer to the Hedgehog Concept. They know what they can be the best at, and they ignore the rest.
BCG recently studied more than 430 strategy organisations to see what separated the highest-performing teams from the rest. The differentiator wasn’t team size, budget, or better technology. It was mandate and governance.
In fact, BCG found that strategy teams operating across multiple, fragmented mandates were 15% less likely to be top performers.
We often assume expansion is inherently positive. More responsibility must mean more relevance. More seats at more tables must mean strategy is winning.
But the data tells a slightly different story. The more things strategy owns, the less clear it becomes what strategy actually owns.
When execution fails, the boundaries are too fuzzy to find the root cause. Was it a bad strategy? Bad execution? The business unit? Or the strategy team that was supposed to orchestrate it all?
4. From Mandate to "Decision Rights"
The next evolution of the strategy function is not about expanding its borders. It is about drawing a hard line around its Decision Rights.
Organisations must answer four simple questions about their strategy team:
What do they own?
What do they influence?
What do they challenge?
What do they deliberately stay out of?
These look like administrative questions, but they aren't. They help determine whether a strategy function can turn insight into impact.
There is a fundamental difference between being invited into a room and having the authority to make the call. Influence can bridge some of this gap. Exceptional strategy leaders are great at building coalitions and creating alignment without relying on hierarchy.
But influence cannot become a permanent substitute for clarity. At some point, you need to decide who actually has the right to say "yes" or "no".
The Difficult Question
The strategy function spent the last decade fighting for relevance. It worked. Strategy is now in the room for the biggest questions facing the enterprise.
But victory has brought a new problem. The function is accumulating responsibility until it is accountable for everything, yet directly controls nothing.
Before leadership teams add another major priority to the strategy plate, they need to answer one final, disciplined question:
If the strategy team is accountable for the outcome, which decisions do they actually have the right to make?
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