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Having one boss can be bad enough. Having two can be worse. Having three can make you wonder whether anyone knows who is in charge.History is full of people who discovered the dangers of serving more than one master. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was one of them.Wolsey was a very important man in Tudor England. He was Henry VIII's chief minister and also a cardinal in the Catholic Church. So he had two powerful relationships to manage: Henry, King of England, and the Pope in Rome.For a while, Wolsey managed this impressive piece of political juggling. Then Henry wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. Unfortunately, the Pope did not agree. Henry wanted action, while the Pope had the power to say no. Wolsey was expected to find a solution that satisfied both. There wasn't one.Wolsey tried to keep both sides happy. This was not a promising career strategy. Henry eventually lost patience with him and Wolsey lost his job.History therefore gives us an early warning about having two bosses. Sometimes the problem is not poor communication. Sometimes there simply isn't a solution that everyone will like.Local government is discovering the same problem, although thankfully without the beheadings.Half of English councils are now under no overall political control. The proportion has risen sharply since 2021 as support for the traditional parties has weakened and councils have become more politically fragmented.A hung council creates a peculiar leadership problem. The chief executive does not literally have three bosses, but politically they may need to maintain effective relationships with the council leader and the leaders of other groups whose support is needed to govern.Call it the three-boss problem.The chief executive has to work with the council leader while also maintaining productive relationships with other political group leaders. Directors face a similar challenge, with their chief executive and relevant portfolio holder.Officers also have to be visibly even-handed. Who gets a meeting, how often they get one and how much time they receive can become politically significant. If one political group appears to have a direct line to the chief executive while another is left waiting outside, accusations of favouritism will not be far behind.Each political group may have a completely different idea of what ‘high priority' means. One wants more money spent on one service. Another wants money spent somewhere else. A third wants council tax kept down.Everyone has a manifesto.Unfortunately, there is only one budget.The chief executive cannot simply tell one political group that the other has won. Nor should they. The job is not to keep everyone happy. It is to remain politically neutral while maintaining the confidence of people who are not politically neutral.That is a much harder skill.Political neutrality does not mean political distance. A chief executive in a hung council needs strong relationships with politicians across the council. They need to listen, communicate and make themselves available. But those relationships cannot become political alliances.Officers also have to be visibly even-handed. Who gets a meeting, how often they get one and how much time they receive can become politically significant. If one political group appears to have a direct line to the chief executive while another is left waiting outside, accusations of favouritism will not be far behind.Information creates another trap. Members need information to do their jobs properly, but confidential conversations must remain confidential. Officers therefore have to know what can be shared, what cannot, and when a disagreement between politicians is something politicians themselves need to resolve.The temptation is for senior officers to quietly sort things out. That is dangerous. Officers can advise, explain the consequences of different choices and tell politicians what is possible, affordable and lawful. They should not quietly decide which political priority wins.That is the politicians' job.So what does a chief executive do?Share information fairly. Nobody should discover that another political group has been given important information first. Be visibly even-handed, because access can look like influence. Protect confidentiality, because trust disappears quickly if private conversations become political currency.Give the same honest professional advice to everyone. Advice should not change because the person asking the question belongs to a different political group. And when politicians give conflicting instructions, expose the conflict rather than quietly choosing a winner.Put the political disagreement back where it belongs: with the politicians.This is particularly important when the council is setting its budget. Different political groups may have different priorities and competing promises, yet there may be very little room for manoeuvre.Budget setting can therefore become an exercise in managing political disappointment. There may be no option that any group particularly likes. The choice is between different versions of the least-worst option.That is politics.The chief executive can explain the consequences, advise on the risks and warn when the numbers do not add up. But they cannot make the political choice and then pretend it was an officer decision.The politicians decide the destination. The officers explain the road conditions, the cost of the journey and where the potholes are. The chief executive makes sure nobody mistakes professional advice for political allegiance.History provides another, rather more sinister, example of the dangers of divided loyalty.Kim Philby was a senior British intelligence officer who was secretly working for the Soviet Union. Officially, he served British intelligence. Secretly, he served another master. This was rather more serious than having two bosses who disagree about the office Christmas party.Philby's problem was divided loyalty. Information that helped one side could damage the other. Eventually, his secret was exposed.A chief executive in a hung council is obviously not Kim Philby. There are no secret meetings with the KGB and, hopefully, rather fewer trench coats. But the lesson is useful: you cannot successfully serve two masters by pretending their interests are always the same, and you certainly cannot serve two political masters by secretly choosing one over the other.The chief executive needs a third approach. Their professional duty is to the council as a whole, exercised through politically impartial advice to elected members. They do not need to make every political leader happy. They need to make sure every political group knows where they stand.Wolsey tried to satisfy two masters and discovered that, eventually, one of them would be angry. Philby served two masters by secretly choosing one over the other. Neither strategy ended well.A chief executive in a hung council has another option: don't choose a political master. Don't try to resolve political disagreements that elected members need to own. Give impartial advice, treat competing political groups fairly, protect confidentiality and make the consequences of different choices clear.A hung council does not need its chief executive to resolve political disagreement. It needs them to make sure political disagreement does not become organisational confusion.The politicians decide the destination. The officers explain the road conditions. The chief executive keeps the vehicle on the road.That may not make the chief executive popular with everyone. But in a hung council, being trusted by everyone may be more important than being liked by anyone. Blair McPherson is an author and former director in local government

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LEADERSHIP

Local councils' three-boss problem

By Blair McPherson | 17 September 2026

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