You’re sitting in a meeting. Everyone is nodding. They’ve been nodding for forty-five minutes while discussing a project that should have been finished three weeks ago. You know the solution. It’s right there. But if you bring it up, you’ll have to fill out a form, wait for a committee review, and probably get a "we'll circle back" from a middle manager who is terrified of their own shadow.
So, you just do it.
That’s the core of the ask forgiveness not permission philosophy. It’s not about being a jerk. It’s about movement. Grace Hopper, the legendary Rear Admiral and computer programming pioneer, is the one who famously coined this idea. She didn't just say it to be edgy; she said it because she worked in the military, the world's most rigid bureaucracy, and she knew that if she waited for every "okay," the COBOL language might never have existed.
Efficiency is often the enemy of protocol. If you’re looking to actually change things, waiting for a green light is a great way to stay parked forever.
The Reality of Ask Forgiveness Not Permission in 2026
We live in a world obsessed with risk mitigation. Seriously. Every company has a "Chief Risk Officer" now. But here’s the thing: the biggest risk isn't making a mistake; it's doing absolutely nothing while your competitors outpace you.
When you ask forgiveness not permission, you’re making a bet. You’re betting that the value of the result will outweigh the friction of the process violation. It’s a high-stakes game. If you break the server and lose a million dollars, "forgiveness" isn't coming. You’re just fired. But if you bypass a redundant approval chain to land a massive client or fix a lingering product bug, people suddenly find it very easy to overlook your "rebellious" streak.
It’s about ownership. Most people want the title without the responsibility. True leaders take the responsibility before they ever get the title. They act. They iterate. They fix.
The Grace Hopper Legacy
Admiral Hopper didn't just invent a phrase; she lived it. When she was working on the Harvard Mark I computer, there wasn't a manual for what she was doing. She was literally creating the future of computing. If she had asked for permission to deviate from established naval protocols regarding engineering, she would have been buried in paperwork.
Instead, she moved. She pioneered the idea that programs should be written in language that humans could actually read, rather than just machine code. That was radical. People hated it. But she did it anyway. She once said, "The most dangerous phrase in the language is, 'We’ve always done it this way.'"
That's the spirit people miss. They think this mantra is an excuse for laziness or sloppy work. It's actually the opposite. It requires more work because you have to be so right that your results justify your bypass of the system.
Where Most People Get It Wrong
There is a massive difference between being a visionary and being a loose cannon.
Kinda like how there's a difference between a calculated risk and a blind guess. If you’re going to act without permission, you better have your data in order. You need to understand the "Why" behind the rules you’re breaking. Rules aren't usually there just to be annoying; they’re often there because someone else messed up ten years ago and the company reacted by building a fence.
Knowing which fences to kick down
Chesterton’s Fence is a philosophical principle that says you shouldn't tear down a fence until you understand exactly why it was built in the first place. This is where most "forgiveness seekers" fail. They see a bureaucratic hurdle and think, "This is stupid," without realizing that hurdle is actually protecting the company from a massive lawsuit or a security breach.
- Safety rules? Never break them. You can't ask for forgiveness if someone gets hurt.
- Financial compliance? Don't touch it. Jail is a high price for a shortcut.
- Workflow bottlenecks? These are your primary targets.
If a process exists simply because of "tradition" or "corporate culture," that is where the ask forgiveness not permission mindset thrives. Honestly, most managers are secretly relieved when someone takes the initiative to fix a broken system, as long as it works.
Real World Wins: The "Shadow" Projects
Some of the best products in history started as "skunkworks" projects. These were things engineers worked on without official budget or approval.
Think about the Sony PlayStation. Ken Kutaragi was a digital engineer at Sony who saw his daughter playing with a Nintendo. He realized Sony needed to be in the gaming space. His bosses? They hated it. Sony was a "serious" electronics company. They didn't do "toys." Kutaragi went behind their backs and worked with Nintendo on a sound chip. When the executives found out, they were livid. He was almost fired. But the CEO, Norio Ohga, saw the potential and protected him.
If Kutaragi had asked for permission, the PlayStation wouldn't exist. He took the risk. He sought forgiveness later. It worked out to the tune of billions of dollars.
But let’s talk about the flip side.
There’s a darker version of this. Look at the early days of "move fast and break things" at places like Uber or Theranos. Uber bypassed local taxi regulations globally. For a long time, it worked. They became a titan. But eventually, the lack of permission caught up to them in the form of massive legal battles and a damaged reputation. And Theranos? That’s what happens when you "ask forgiveness" for faking the actual technology. That isn't innovation; it's fraud.
Nuance matters.
The Psychology of Initiative
Why are we so afraid to act?
It’s simple: evolutionary biology. Our brains are wired to prioritize social belonging. In a tribal setting, being cast out meant death. In a corporate setting, being "cast out" means losing your dental plan. It feels the same to our nervous system.
When you act without permission, you are intentionally distancing yourself from the safety of the "herd." You’re standing alone on a limb. If the limb breaks, you’re the only one falling. That’s why most people wait. They want the safety of a group consensus so that if things go wrong, no one person is to blame.
But if you want to be a high-performer, you have to get comfortable with that feeling of exposure.
How to Apply This Without Getting Fired
You want to start taking more initiative. Great. Don't go out and delete the company database on Monday morning. Start small.
Basically, you want to build a "credibility bank." Every time you do something small without asking and it turns out well, you deposit "trust" into that bank. Once your balance is high enough, you can start taking bigger risks.
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The Small Scale Approach:
- Fix a typo on the main website without a three-day email chain.
- Research a new software tool and run a free trial before suggesting it.
- Draft a full proposal instead of asking "should I write a proposal?"
It's about the "Bias to Action."
In business, speed is a feature. If two teams have the same idea, the one that executes first wins. The team that spends three months getting "alignment" from fourteen different stakeholders will lose every single time to the person who just built a prototype over the weekend.
What if it goes wrong?
This is the "forgiveness" part of ask forgiveness not permission.
When you mess up—and you will—own it immediately. No excuses. No "I thought someone said..." or "The instructions were unclear."
You say: "I took the initiative to try and solve X, I bypassed the usual Y process to save time, and I made a mistake. Here is how I’m fixing it and what I learned."
Strangely enough, leaders often respect this more than they respect someone who never makes a mistake because they never do anything. It shows guts. It shows you care more about the company's success than your own ego.
The Manager's Perspective
If you’re a leader, you actually want your people to do this. You might say you want everyone to follow the handbook, but you don't. You want people who solve problems before you even know they exist.
To foster this, you have to create "Psychological Safety." This is a term popularized by Amy Edmondson, a Harvard Business School professor. It’s the belief that you won't be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.
If you punish every minor deviation from the "plan," you will end up with a team of robots. Robots don't innovate. They just follow code until they hit an error and stop.
Why companies die
Companies don't usually die because of one big mistake. They die because of a thousand tiny delays. They die because the culture becomes so permission-heavy that the talented people leave to start their own companies where they don't have to ask for a signature to buy a $20 software subscription.
Actionable Steps for the "Rebel" Professional
Ready to stop waiting? Here is how you actually implement this mindset in your daily work life.
Identify the low-stakes friction. Find a task that takes ten minutes to do but three days to get approved. Just do it. See what happens. Most of the time, the "permission" you were waiting for was imaginary anyway. People often confuse "the way we do it" with "the way we MUST do it."
Document your wins.
When you take initiative, keep a record of the result. "I bypassed the standard vendor review to get this tool in place, which saved the team 4 hours a week." That’s your shield.
Communicate late, but communicate clearly.
The phrase isn't "do things in secret." It's "ask forgiveness after." Once you've taken the action and have a preliminary result, tell your stakeholders. "Hey, I noticed a lag in our response times so I went ahead and restructured the intake flow. It's already cut down wait times by 15%. Let me know if you want to see the new map."
Know your "Red Lines."
Identify the things you absolutely cannot touch without a signature. Usually, this involves spending significant money, legal contracts, or public-facing brand changes. Everything else is a gray area. Play in the gray.
The world isn't waiting for you to get permission. The market doesn't care about your internal approval process. The most successful people are those who realize that the "rules" are often just suggestions made by people who are no longer in the room.
If you want to make an impact, stop asking for the "okay" and start delivering the "wow." You can always apologize for being too fast, too efficient, or too effective.
But you can never get back the time you spent waiting for a "yes" that was never going to come anyway.
Next Steps:
- Audit your current "to-do" list. Identify one item where you are currently waiting for someone else’s permission.
- Ask yourself: "What is the worst that happens if I just finish this right now?"
- If the answer isn't "I'll go to jail" or "The company will go bankrupt," go ahead and do it.
- Present the finished result instead of the request for approval.