The COO is the most consistently misunderstood role in the senior leadership structure. From outside, it reads as a preparation position — the understudy to the CEO, accumulating experience for the principal role. From inside, it is one of the most cognitively and physiologically demanding positions in any organisation: responsible for execution quality across the entire organisation, accountable for results across every function, and operating in permanent proximity to the CEO’s authority without the clarity of being the final decision-maker.

That ambiguity — the persistent uncertainty about the precise boundary between the COO’s authority and the CEO’s — is not a structural inefficiency to be managed. It is the defining feature of the role. And it imposes a specific physiological load that the performance frameworks designed for the CEO position do not capture.

The Authority Ambiguity Load