Lane Discipline: The Forgotten Foundation of Organizational Integrity and the Presidential Perils of Doing Too Much
“Staying in your lane” is not about putting people down but about keeping them from veering into dangerous traffic. It is good advice for cars and organizations. Do what you are supposed to do and do it faithfully to arrive safely at your proper destination.
Every driver understands the fundamental logic of lane discipline. Okay they should - looking at you, Maryland. But, Virginia’s neighbor across the Potomac aside, we stay in our lanes not because someone wishes to limit our freedoms, but because doing so protects everyone on the road. When a vehicle drifts across the lines without signaling, we enter the danger zone. Other drivers must adjust and the risk of collision becomes real. The lane delineation exist not to diminish the driver but to allow everyone to progress in peace.
Accordingly, organizations function under the same principle, though the consequences of drifting are less immediate and therefore more often ignored. When individuals or departments operate beyond their designated scope, they do not simply overstep a boundary—they create organizational turbulence that can compromise accountability, dilute credibility, and confuse both internal stakeholders and the public. Staying in one’s lane is not a restriction on competence or initiative. It is a recognition that complex systems require clearly defined roles, and that clarity itself is a form of institutional strength. This is especially important when an organization feels like it is under attack or unfairly maligned. We see this so often in politics. A party or an administration is under fire and it seems everyone is rushing to respond rather than taking a cooler assessment of the issue.
We also see this in another more critical way today: when the Presidency too often does the job of Congress.
But focused presidential authority is an assignment, not a harmful limitation.
To stay in one’s lane begins with understanding what that lane actually is. Authority in organizations is not a prize to be claimed or a territory to be expanded. It is an assignment, a mandate entrusted to a person or body for a specific purpose. When people speak or act only from the office or expertise granted to them, they honor the structure that makes collective work possible. They also preserve the credibility of their voice, because their words carry the weight of legitimacy. When a president, whose job is to uphold and defend the Constitution, claims a mandate, it can never be to violate the thing they swore to uphold. The same goes for the courts, for every entity of the government.
Again, temptation to speak and act beyond one’s scope is common, particularly in moments of pressure or controversy. A department head may feel compelled to comment on a matter outside their purview because they have an opinion or because silence feels passive. A board member may issue a statement on operational issues because they believe their perspective is valuable. And it may be, but, when people speak beyond their mandate, they do not add clarity—they blur it. Lines of accountability weaken. The organization appears uncoordinated, and the public begins to wonder who is actually responsible for what. We see this in the US federal government today. Congress is supposed to set the policies on tariffs, war and funding. The president is to execute. And Federal Courts are merely to apply what Congress has enacted, to particular circumstances, not enact policy themselves.
The Necessary Separation of Powers
One of the most critical lane distinctions in any organization is the separation between those who govern daily operations and those who provide oversight or ensure compliance. Administrative leaders manage, execute, and make decisions within the scope of their operational authority. Oversight bodies—whether boards, compliance officers, or external reviewers—exist to ensure that those decisions are made with integrity, consistency, and accountability. Like Congress and its committees. Respecting this distinction is about power and hierarchy, but that hierarchy is not arbitrary, it is about function. Even a capable person can do too much, and with power the temptation is always there. A good mechanic does not also serve as the safety inspector of their own work. A judge does not prosecute the case they will decide. The separation exists because impartiality and accountability require it. When each body does its part and resists the urge to trespass into the other’s responsibilities, decisions remain defensible and trustworthy. Where the most power lies you want more people involved to check impulse, pride, and greed. The Constitution is the GPS of the state.
However, while there is good reason to be suspicious of politicians and of people in power in many organizations, it is not useful to adopt the attitude that everyone is corrupt. For one, we now see that attitude actually raises rather than lowers the toleration of bad behavior because we stop seeing it as extraordinary, and those good people who do not want to risk their reputations because of the messy work of leading will steer clear, leaving the lane wide open for bad actors. And yet, American institutions that have lost trust need to look more clearly at how they got to the place where they are. Often they will find it is because they started doing things they had no business to do. Self-government requires restraint. Prudence is not timidity. It is wisdom. It is the recognition that words have consequences, that institutions have responsibilities, and that the goal is not to win the day but to sustain the mission.
When the Founding Fathers set up the separation of powers it was so that no one body of the government could act without clear consensus and that by being forced to reach agreement the government would have more energy to accomplish its objectives. Essentially the balance of powers meant that major actions of the federal government would have more buy-in from the various constituencies involved. It might be a compromise but at least enough people could live with it to make it work. That is why it made sense ultimately to have the People and the State Governments each have a chamber of Congress that represented them. In the 19th century when Congress agreed you had less friction with the state governments because they had their say through the Senate. Effectively US senators were ambassadors from their states to the federal government, and since they had equal representation, in principle nothing could be done without at least half of the states having one of their senators voting in favor. That has been lost since the 1913 ratification of the 17th Amendment, and we consequently see a lot of unnecessary conflict between our levels of government. Good government requires discipline, and discipline makes excellence possible. When every person and every body within an organization operates from their proper authority, respects the boundaries of their role, and communicates with care and coordination, the organization becomes stronger, more coherent, and more trustworthy. This true for a church, a university and a government.
In moments of scrutiny or crisis, the wise organization responds from its proper authority—calmly, truthfully, and only as far as its responsibility extends. It does not drift. It does not overreach. It stays in its lane, not because it lacks ambition or courage, but because it understands that safe arrival depends on faithful adherence to the path assigned. And in that discipline, rightly-ordered authority finds not constraint, but the liberty to fulfill its purposes. That is better for all of us.