Job Titles Are Cheap — Clarity Is What’s Missing

It’s easy to hand out titles. It’s harder to define what they actually mean.

That’s the real issue inside many growing organisations today: roles that sound impressive but mean very little in practice. Job descriptions that were copy-pasted from competitors. Reporting lines that change with every reorg. And an unspoken culture where no one really knows who owns what — until something goes wrong.

We call it agility. In reality, it’s ambiguity.

Startups and scale-ups are especially prone to this. When you’re growing fast, the priority is usually hiring — not precision. You need people on the ground. You need energy. You need coverage. But somewhere along the way, you end up with three “Leads” doing different things, two “Heads of” managing no one, and a “Manager” who’s actually just a solo operator.

This lack of clarity doesn’t just confuse staff. It undermines performance. When people don’t know exactly what’s expected of them, they default to what feels safe. That means tasks get duplicated. Strategic work gets postponed. And the real risks — the gaps between roles — are nobody’s job.

A London-based media firm learned this the hard way in 2023. Two departments shared responsibility for external communications. One managed partnerships, the other handled press. Neither thought to monitor influencer activity — until a sponsored post went out with incorrect messaging during a live campaign. The cost wasn’t catastrophic. But it was entirely avoidable. The gap wasn’t in the plan — it was in the roles.

Titles are rarely the problem on their own. The problem is that titles are used as shortcuts — to avoid hard conversations about scope, priority, and accountability.

Ask someone what they do, and they’ll tell you their title. Ask them what decisions they’re responsible for, and you’ll get a pause.

That pause is the problem.

Organisations that take job design seriously don’t stop at titles or even job descriptions. They define decision rights. They clarify authority levels. They make sure that everyone — from leadership down — knows where the boundaries are. That doesn’t reduce flexibility. It enables it. Because once everyone understands the lanes, you can actually move faster without crashing into each other.

Job clarity also plays a critical role in progression. If no one knows what a role involves, how do you prepare someone to grow into it? Or evaluate whether they’re ready?

Too often, performance reviews rely on soft language: “shows potential”, “adds value”, “strong presence”. What’s missing is a concrete sense of whether the person has delivered against a defined set of responsibilities.

And that creates bias. The people who get ahead aren’t always the most effective. They’re the most visible. Or the most confident. Or the most familiar. Clarity levels the playing field. It forces decisions to be made based on substance — not style.

One financial services firm in Leeds tackled this in a straightforward way. Every role, regardless of level, had to be documented in terms of five questions:

1. What decisions can this role make alone?
   
   
2. What does this role influence, but not own?
   
   
3. What information does this role need to perform well?
   
   
4. What does success look like after six months?
   
   
5. What are the top three risks if this role is done poorly?
   
   

It wasn’t a complicated framework. But it changed how teams spoke about work. Promotions became clearer. Onboarding improved. Handover notes had purpose. And staff reported higher satisfaction in understanding “what they were actually meant to do.”

There’s another side to this: retention. People don’t leave companies just because of pay. They leave because they feel stuck. Or unclear. Or invisible. When roles are ambiguous, contribution becomes hard to see. And when you’re not sure whether your work matters, it’s easier to disengage.

This is especially true in hybrid teams. Without hallway conversations or casual check-ins, employees rely on structure to anchor their role. If that structure is missing, isolation sets in quickly.

Clear role design isn’t bureaucracy. It’s basic respect.

If you want a high-performing team, don’t start with perks or performance plans. Start with definition. Not just what people are called — but what they’re trusted to deliver.

If you can’t describe a role in terms of decisions and outcomes, it probably isn’t working.

And if your people spend more time clarifying who owns what than doing the work itself, it’s not a culture problem. It’s a structure one.

Fix that — and everything else moves faster.