The problem with “High Agency” culture

“High agency” has become the new magic phrase.

Every podcast. Every article. Every founder chat.

It’s being sold as the trait that separates the passengers from the leaders — the people who wait to be told what to do versus the ones who spot problems, solve them, and update you after the fact.

And in theory, it is a brilliant trait.

→ Teams work faster.

→ Leaders spend less time hand-holding.

→ Things stop falling through the cracks.

But there’s a part that no one seems to think about:

High agency is being used as an excuse for lazy onboarding and unclear leadership.

I’ve seen it more than once.
Someone joins a company — bright, proactive, keen to get stuck in — and the expectation is simply:

“Off you go. Figure it out. We hire high-agency people.”

Which sounds empowering, until you realise they’re left digging around for basic context:

• What exactly am I trying to achieve here?
• Why does this matter?
• Where are the tools and information?
• Who actually owns what?

Being proactive shouldn’t mean playing detective, and it definitely shouldn’t mean navigating political landmines because leaders haven’t set expectations with the rest of the team.

I’ve gone into businesses to map processes or fix delivery, and you can feel the tension instantly when no one has told department heads why you’re there. People get defensive. Closed. Suspicious. Not because they’re difficult — but because no one prepared them.

A 30 min conversation from leadership would remove 80% of that friction.

This is the irony:
Companies say they want high-agency people to make things more efficient…
…while creating environments that make efficient work almost impossible.

So here’s the TL;DR:

Yes - hire proactive people. Work with proactive suppliers.
But you still need to set them up for success.

High agency doesn’t replace onboarding.
It doesn’t replace clarity, and it doesn’t replace your responsibility to create the conditions where people can actually do their best work.

Otherwise “high agency” becomes code for:

“I can’t be bothered to lead properly.”

And that helps no one.