You’ve probably been in this meeting.

A room full of smart people. Slides are decent. The problem has been pulled apart carefully. Someone has already pointed out why this is harder than it looks. Someone else has flagged a risk. A third has mentioned a dependency that could become an issue later.

About twenty minutes in, someone finally asks,
“So… what should we do?”

There’s a pause.

Not because people don’t have views — they clearly do — but because everyone is trying to work out who should answer that question.

Eyes drift, almost instinctively, to the most senior person in the room. Or the person whose name is bolded on the meeting invite.

The meeting wraps up with a familiar line:
“Let’s align offline.”

Everyone leaves knowing two things: the issue is real. And nothing meaningful has shifted.

For a long time, I thought moments like this were failures of clarity or leadership. Lately, I’ve started to see them as something else entirely — a breakdown of agency.

How we ended up here

For much of modern corporate history, agency was scarce by design. Leadership defined roles, set direction, controlled information and made decisions. Employees were expected to fall in line and execute. Initiative existed, yes – but tightly bounded by hierarchy and process.

That model is now under strain. Expectations around work are shifting rapidly, with the balance of power tilting towards employees seeking flexibility, independence and meaning. The rise of independent professionals, demand for remote work and emphasis on wellness all reflect a broader desire for autonomy.

And then there is AI. McKinsey’s report, Superagency in the Workplace, sends a clear message: employee agency is the key to unlocking AI’s value. AI has the potential to enable brand-new ways of working – but only when people are empowered to apply it creatively. Where leadership remains cautious or overly centralised, AI adoption stalls.

Noted AI researcher Andrej Karpathy put it much more bluntly in a post that stayed with me:
“Agency > Intelligence.”

His argument was simple. We’ve spent decades venerating intelligence — IQ, expertise, cognitive horsepower. But agency, he suggests, is far more powerful and far more scarce. Intelligence helps you see problems clearly. Agency is what makes you do something about them. And without agency, even very smart people end up spectators in their own work.

What the absence of agency looks like

For capable employees, the absence of agency results in stagnation. They have ideas, skills and motivation – yet feel unable to move forward when decisions are made elsewhere and initiative is discouraged. Over time, this erodes engagement, showing up as: “Why bother? I can’t change anything anyway.” People stop speaking up, experimenting and solving problems. Instead, they wait for instruction.

For leaders, the consequences of a low-agency culture surface differently. Decision-making slows, choking at bottlenecks. Teams may execute tasks efficiently but struggle to think ahead, adapt and innovate. There is plenty of intelligence and experience – but little ownership. Ironically, some leaders who complain about lack of initiative are the very ones who make it impossible by punishing risk, burying decisions in bureaucracy or failing to clarify decision rights.

So this week, let’s explore agency – both as a strategic advantage for organisations and a career imperative for individuals. What steps can leaders take to unlock the benefits of a high-agency culture? How can individuals propel their career forward by expanding personal agency?

Simply put, agency is the difference between feeling like work happens to you versus feeling like your choices matter. According to startup advisor Shreyas Doshi’s agency/talent framework, people fall into one of four categories:

• Game Changers (High Agency, High Talent) solve problems, influence outcomes and disrupt outdated approaches. They thrive in environments that reward initiative but can struggle with rigid approvals.
• Go-Getters (High Agency, Low Talent) are primed to act first and learn fast, favouring momentum over perfection. Their challenge lies in limited depth: effort without expertise can become inefficient.
• Frustrated Geniuses (Low Agency, High Talent) are highly capable but constrained, often feeling blocked by structure or leadership. Their risk is stagnation – not from lack of ability, but from insufficient support and learned helplessness.
• Cogs in the Wheel (Low Agency, Low Talent) favour execution over ownership. While stable, they experience limited growth and are more vulnerable to automation if work remains purely task-based.

For leaders:

Conversations about agency can slip into simplistic narratives – the idea that people either take initiative or don’t, that’s that. But agency (or the lack of it) goes beyond individual attitudes. It is also shaped by leadership behaviour, workplace processes and company culture – which often foster passive compliance over proactive ownership.

Studies across Norway and Sweden, known for their high-agency work culture, show that organisations encouraging horizontal collaboration outperform those reliant on traditional, top-down decision-making. Companies like Haier and Supercell have also demonstrated how autonomy and decentralisation can drive innovation at scale. When employees feel they have a voice – and that acting on it is safe – outcomes improve.

By all accounts, agency is quickly becoming a strategic differentiator. Organisations that cultivate it intentionally will move faster, learn quicker and retain talent longer. Those that don’t will continue to wonder why smart people aren’t stepping up.

Here are seven suggestions for leaders to start fostering a high-agency workplace:

1. Reward initiative, even if it fails.

Agency collapses when employees see initiative met with silence or subtle punishment. As leaders, we need to recognise and celebrate experimentation, even when results are imperfect, and publicly support those who shake up the status quo.

2. Clarify where permission lives.

Explicitly define what decisions teams and individuals can make without escalation, rather than relying on assumed authority. Expand genuine ownership, marked by clear guardrails

3. Remove friction from daily decisions.

High agency cannot coexist with heavy bureaucracy. Audit where decisions stall and cut unnecessary layers of sign-off, especially for low-risk initiatives. Enable teams to take charge and move quickly.

4. Focus on outcomes, not control.

Recalibrate objectives to specify the what rather than the how – giving teams more room to exercise their judgment. This approach also supports adaptability as conditions change.

5. Build skills needed for ownership

– especially with new tools like AI. McKinsey’s research shows that agency is the engine of AI adoption, but only when people are trained for it. Without investments in learning and experimentation, AI’s potential will remain locked behind uncertainty and risk aversion.

6. Train managers to lead with trust.

Many managers unintentionally suppress agency through micromanagement. Re-train managers to delegate decisions, manage hybrid teams, and focus on achieving results over tracking activity.

7. Share the right context.

Loss of agency often comes from feeling out of the loop. Foster transparency around major changes, strategies and expectations to help employees understand where they can act and why it matters.

For individuals:

Personal agency grows through action, not by waiting around for ideal conditions. Regardless of your workplace culture, developing high agency will change how opportunities find you – and how you respond to them.

Cultivating an ‘agentic’ mindset is linked to benefits like higher wellbeing, lower stress and greater resilience. More practically, it equips you to make genuine progress towards your goals, adapt when roles shift and recover faster from setbacks.

Growth often stalls because of prolonged disengagement. Developing agency as a habit can help you break out of this rut and accelerate your career. Here are seven ways to begin:

1. Focus on your sphere of control.

When you feel stuck, pause and deliberately separate what is within your control from what isn’t. High personal agency springs from a strong internal locus of control – recognising where you do have influence and choosing to act there. By consistently asking, “What’s mine to influence here?”, you train yourself to look for leverage points instead of reasons to check out.

2. Turn obstacles into options.

Low-agency thinking fixates on why something can’t be done, reinforcing helplessness. High-agency thinking reframes the same situation by asking what conditions need to change for progress to happen. This mindset shift takes you from passive observation into active problem-solving, despite constraints. So, instead of saying, “My boss won’t approve this plan,” ask, “What changes could make them support it?”

3. Expand your influence.

Agency grows when you learn how decisions are made and who needs to be involved for your ideas to gain traction. What organisational priorities should you align with? Who are your potential allies? Are your contributions visible to the right people?

4. Ask the right questions.

Get clarity on job expectations, ownership areas and career progression to uncover new avenues to exercise your agency. These conversations also signal initiative, helping others see you as someone invested in outcomes beyond basic task execution.

5. Get rejected – on purpose.

Learn to take rejection in your stride by intentionally aiming high and asking for big things. This allows you to feel out new pathways, sharpen your judgment and reduce the emotional cost of taking initiative. When the fear of ‘no’ loses its power, agency begins to thrive.

6. Start small and keep going.

Build agency through repeated, low-friction acts of ownership – like enhancing a process, running a small-scale pilot or refining outcomes within your role. These little wins strengthen self-trust, preparing you for bigger things.

7. Enact your agency fully.

Practice full-fledged agency using the four steps outlined by Thomas Bateman in Psychology Today:

• Forethought: decide to take on a challenge, think ahead, set goals, make plans
• Implementation: take first steps, enact your plan, persist towards success
• Self-management: take care of yourself, handle emotions & stress, maintain good health
• Learning & adapting: monitor progress, rethink strategies & tactics, make adjustments

As evolving employee expectations and AI adoption continue to reshape our world, agency will increasingly mark the difference between companies that adapt and thrive – and those that stall. When leaders create environments where initiative is safe and ownership is shared, they unlock innovation, speed and resilience.

For individuals, personal agency is what drives momentum – even in imperfect conditions. It’s what helps you stay engaged, navigate obstacles and succeed through changing realities. Luckily, agency isn’t a fixed trait; it’s a practice that strengthens each time you act where you have influence and own your response.

The future of work will reward those who don’t wait for permission but decide where they can add value and move forward accordingly.

In fact, the future is here. Are you ready for it?