Authority Vacuum
When a governance role goes unfilled, the PM absorbs it by default.
When a governance role goes unfilled, the PM absorbs it by default. The vacuum is invisible until the PM is overloaded, conflicted, or removed.
Recognition signals
- The PM is making decisions outside their delegation — commercial, technical, or both — because nobody else stepped into them.
- Commercial decisions are happening without commercial authority. Milestone payments get approved, variations get agreed, but nobody with contract expertise is in the room.
- "Nobody else was doing it, so I stepped in" — the PM explains how they ended up holding a domain that isn't theirs.
- No one can name who holds a specific authority domain. Ask "who owns commercial decisions on this project?" and watch the room.
- The PM absorbed authority because nobody else was assigned to it. Not a power grab — a gravity problem. The PM is always in the room, so the vacuum fills toward them.
Structural cause
Why this happens
Organisations design project governance around positions — PM, sponsor, steering committee — without mapping authority domains to those positions. There are three domains that need explicit owners: delivery, technical, and commercial. When nobody maps who holds what, the gaps fill by proximity.
The PM is always in the room. They attend every meeting, see every deliverable, talk to every stakeholder. When a governance domain has no designated owner, the PM absorbs it — not by design, but by default. Nobody notices because the work gets done.
The vacuum is invisible while the PM compensates. It becomes visible only when the PM is overloaded (three hats on one head), conflicted (enforcing quality against a vendor they're also managing commercially), or removed (and nobody knows who holds the authority they were exercising).
Risk mapping
| Risk | Description |
|---|---|
| V1 | Authority gap — vendor governance authority unclear or missing |
| V5 | Missing role — contract or commercial management role absent |
| G1 | Three hats — PM absorbs delivery, technical, and commercial authority |
| G3 | Structure gap — governance structure doesn't cover all authority domains |
| G6 | Delegation gap — approvals happening without delegated authority |
| G10 | Design gap — governance designed around positions, not authority domains |
Self-assessment
When to worry
- Your PM is making commercial decisions they weren't hired to make — because nobody else stepped up
- You can't name who holds commercial authority for each vendor relationship
- The PM has been compensating for a missing governance role for more than a month
- Removing the PM would leave governance gaps nobody else knows how to fill
When you're OK
- Authority domains are explicitly mapped to named individuals
- The PM holds only delivery authority — technical and commercial sit elsewhere
- Delegation limits are documented and exercised
Related reading
- The vendor management trap — Authority Vacuum + Narrative Capture form the classic vendor management failure cascade
- The contract management gap — the missing commercial role that creates the vacuum
- Entropy Ratchet — what happens when the PM's compensation becomes the governance model
- Incompatible Mandate — the related pattern where roles are merged rather than missing
Authority Vacuum is the most common entry point for governance failure.
A programme health check maps authority domains to positions and identifies gaps before they compound. 10fifteen — programme governance assessments.