How Do You Stop Every Decision Coming Back to You

If you took Friday off, which decisions would wait until Monday?

Some should. Others may be decisions your senior people are perfectly capable of making, but still bring back to you. When that happens regularly, your availability becomes a limit on what the business can do.

The place to start is a real decision that reached your desk this week. Find out why the person closest to it did not feel able to make the call, then agree what authority they will have next time.

Why capable leaders wait for permission

“Use your judgement” can sound generous until a decision is questioned or reversed after the event. A manager may know the issue well but have no clear sense of which trade-offs you would accept. Asking you becomes the safer choice.

There are decisions that genuinely require your involvement, particularly those with significant consequences for the business. Without an agreed boundary, however, smaller calls tend to arrive on your desk as well.

Look at a decision from last week

Choose one you would have expected a senior colleague to make. What did they need from you? If it was information you held, consider how they could get that information earlier next time. If they wanted approval, ask what they believed they were authorised to decide.

Then consider your own response. If they had made a sound decision that differed from yours, would you have supported it?

Knowing this is key because people learn the real extent of their authority from what happens when they use it. A conversation about ownership will carry little weight if every reasonable call is reopened afterwards.

Agree a boundary people can use

Decision ownership means knowing who can make the call and when they need to involve someone else. Make that distinction concrete.

A department head might, for example, be able to bring in temporary support within an agreed budget. If the cost exceeds that limit, they speak to you before committing it. Otherwise, they make the decision and update you at the next leadership meeting.

The boundary should suit the decision. A new client contract will need different safeguards from a routine staffing adjustment. Once you have agreed who has authority, let them exercise it. You can ask how they reached a decision without taking it back simply because you would have chosen differently.

Put it to the Friday test

Choose a Friday when you can step away from ordinary decisions, while remaining reachable for a genuine emergency. Beforehand, make sure your senior people know which calls they can make.

On Monday, look at what moved forward and what waited. Where a decision still came back to you, ask what would have enabled the right person to act. An unclear limit may need to be defined. A previous reversal may need an clear conversation.

Your judgement remains important on decisions that could materially change the business. Clearer authority allows your team to handle the rest. If you can take Friday off without returning to a queue of permissions on Monday, you have reclaimed a day and removed a significant constraint on growth.

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If taking Friday off means spending Monday clearing a backlog of decisions, book a free 30-minute call and I’ll give you my honest view on where to start.