Distribute Decisions
Most leaders say they want speed, ownership, and initiative in their teams.
Then they centralize decisions at the top. 🤔
No wonder so many of them feel like prisoners in their own roles, with everything depending on their presence, energy, and ability to spot what’s failing.
Letting people closest to the work decide, has 4 benefits:
• Information doesn’t need to travel up and down the hierarchy.
• First-hand information beats second-hand summaries.
• Autonomy reduces stress and increases creativity and productivity.
• Impact compounds, with the entire team continuously making decisions instead of 10 executives acting as a bottleneck.
The role of leaders is to enable better decisions by everyone.
A few practical tips:
1️⃣ Set the expectation
• Be explicit about why you’re distributing decisions.
• Clarify the rules of the game (e.g. how to gather input, when approval is needed).
• And most importantly: make it safe. People won’t step up if they fear being judged.
2️⃣ Stop being the default decision-maker
When someone brings you a problem, resist solving it.
Ask questions. Guide their thinking. Let them decide.
It may feel slower now, but it builds capability for later.
3️⃣ Actively create ownership
Ask: “Is there anything you would change to enable you to do your best work?”
Then invite them to make that happen, with your support.
You might be surprised how much untapped initiative is sitting there.
4️⃣ Gradually ramp up decision distribution
Autonomy isn’t binary. It grows over time.
Start with personal planning, tools, and methods.
Then expand to team collaboration, process improvements, and so on.
By giving team members more freedom, leaders can be freed from day-to-day firefighting.
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