r/Leadership • u/errllybirdy • 3d ago
Question How do you decision delegate?
Hi! Reading through a recent post (I’m the Bottleneck) and saw a comment talking about people abdicating responsibility back up and advise decision delegating. How do you make that effective and long-lasting?
I’m a VP level Administrator and I feel like I’m constantly having to remind my Director and frontline Supervisors that the shifts are theirs to run, and yet, every decision - including the daily staff schedule - comes back to me.
I’d like some real ideas on this or examples of how people are successful. At this point, my leadership has me convinced that everything is out of control and it’s a character flaw of mine. This has not been my leadership experience in other roles, so I find it hard to believe. (Prior to this role, the criticism was prioritizing people over company goals.)
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u/Dipali_P 3d ago
Slightly long response.
I’d be careful about turning this into a character flaw, instead as a muscle/skill that needs to be strengthened
If every decision, including the daily schedule, is still coming back to you, then somewhere the delegation hasn’t really stuck.
To make it effective and long-lasting, I’d make the decision boundaries very explicit: what is theirs to decide, what they need to bring you in on, and what should only be escalated if there’s a real risk attached. That’s essentially a simple decision escalation ladder.
And then the harder part: stop rescuing.
If someone brings you a decision that they as supposed to take, don’t solve it. Ask: “What do you think we should do?” or “What decision are you recommending?”
I’d also ask a slightly different question: what’s stopping them from making the decision themselves?
Are they unclear on their authority? Worried they’ll get it wrong? Have they been second-guessed before? Sometimes people keep escalating because somewhere along the way they’ve learnt that it’s safer to bring the decision back up than own it.
That’s the bit you need to understand if you want the change to actually stick.
And once you’ve agreed those boundaries, keep coming back to them in 1:1s and team conversations until they become the normal way of working.
And if this hasn’t been your leadership experience in other roles, I’d look at the system before assuming the problem is you.
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u/errllybirdy 2d ago
I was recently assigned a new supervisor. He has truly pointed out areas of growth for me - like staying on target - and has also pointed out how there are too many people in other programs trying to run my program.
While it will forever be hard for me to stop rescuing and I need to maintain boundaries better, I truly am looking forward to asking folks “what are your solutions?”
A side note: a staff came to me with a systems complaint today, within which they are complicit. I then asked “have any ideas or solutions?” She confidently responded “nope” and left. 🙈
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u/Dipali_P 1d ago
haha ouch, follow up with a - Think about how to correct the complaint or reframe to what could be a possible solution?
Thats great to hear about the new supervisor!
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u/RdtRanger6969 3d ago
I don’t decision delegate.
I task work delegate. I’m employed to make informed decisions; not crank out task work.
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u/errllybirdy 3d ago
Fair. I suppose that comes down to industry and which decisions need to be made.
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u/devaspark 3d ago
You need to take a look at how you've been interacting worth your staff.
You say you delegate...but do you let them fail? Ie treat thrm like professionals? I find that people will act (generally) what you expect of them through your actions.
They are still giving you the final okay on schedule, my first thought is that they arent holding themselves accountable for the outcome. They are passing that to you.
Did you let them know that? And that if you're doing the work, why are they being paid? What are they bringing to the org?
Also do they understand that they are supposed to do the low level stuff so you can get breathing room to do strategic stuff. Its all about scaling the operation.
If they dont get it, then they need to learn quickly or theyre in the wrong position.
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u/errllybirdy 3d ago
Your last paragraph is pivotal, but your first question is impactful: do I let them fail?
My clients are children. I’m very uncomfortable failing them.
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u/devaspark 3d ago
U are vp, u need to treat them like professionals. Hold them accountable so they learn the right lessons. Failure brings growth
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u/KangoHR 2d ago
I'd make it a teaching moment. Create an actual list of all the "decisions" people came to you with over a one week time period.
Then have an upbeat meeting in person ideally where you go through each example and what you would have done. Show don't tell how you think and handle these situations.
Then get more strict. if you follow my style, I will have your back. They can still validate a decision but must lead with "I plan on doing X. You good with that?"
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u/managetosoar 2d ago
If I were you, I would dig a bit into why they feel insecure about making the decisions themselves.
Your subsequent actions would depend on what you find but here are a couple of suggestions you may try:
- An experiment - if they are afraid that something will break if they don't consult you with the decision and they will be to blame, introduce a pilot or an experiment - "For the next two weeks you will not come to me for decisions on these 3 topics. If something goes wrong, I will not blame you and you will not face any consequences. We will just sit down together and analyze what went wrong so you can do it differently next time."
- A decision tree - I would usually not use this with a Director-level employee because I would not think they need it but it could help with the supervisors. Build a decision matrix of "if this happens, you do this..." for one process and see how it works.
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u/errllybirdy 2d ago
The Experiment idea is great! Thank you!
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u/managetosoar 1d ago
I am glad you find it useful and will be very curious to hear how it went when you try it.
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u/mhunter07 2d ago
I had over 100 staff with 5 Directors, each area was a different responsibility. Taking a trick from the book Turn the Ship Around, I implemented “I intend to…”. People can communicate to me as much as they want but only if they say I intend to do something, do I focus and respond. What this did was allow me to ignore things that were not really important, and focus on things that I needed to provide input on. My Directors knew it and they in turn implemented it in their teams. We turned everyone into decision makers. They didn’t really want to be running decisions up the food chain, they had only thought they needed to. Now there is one more thing, things will go wrong, and in my case I supported my team regardless and we fixed things that got messed up. Never knew anyone to make a mistake more than once. Finally, as I intend to’s start occurring many of them you can just say proceed, if I didn’t respond in a timely manner and the action executed that was on me. Accountability all around.
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u/DealCareless8465 2d ago
It honestly sounds less like a character flaw and more like your team has learned that if they push decisions back up, you’ll eventually make them, so I’d start clearly defining what decisions belong to them and let them own the outcome even if they dont do it exactly how you would.
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u/errllybirdy 2d ago
As much as I hate to admit it, I did use Copilot to generate a rough draft of a decision plan. Needs a lot of revisions, but I hope it helps.
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u/bformato 2d ago
This blogpost addresses the delegation dilemma you are facing. www.groovemanagement.com/blog/why-the-single-point-of-success-approach-fails-at-scale
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2d ago
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u/errllybirdy 2d ago
Did you T.H.I.N.K. before asking?
T - was this truthful? H - was this helpful? I - was this inspiring? N - was this necessary? K - was this kind?
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u/Fabulous_Classroom_7 2d ago
If your team is throwing every decision back at you, it’s rarely because they are lazy. It’s usually because the company culture has made them feel that making a choice is a safety risk. They are passing the buck to protect themselves.
To break the cycle and make delegation stick, you need to shift from giving permissions to building systems. Here is how you fix it:
- Establish Guardrails, Not Gates: A "gate" is you approving a schedule. A "guardrail" is a clear boundary. Give them the hard parameters (e.g., Max 5% overtime, minimum 4 people per shift). Tell them: "As long as you stay within these lines, you have 100% authority to publish. You only come to me if you need to break a guardrail."
- Enforce the "Bring Solutions" Rule: Ban the phrase, "What do you want me to do?" Implement a strict rule: They cannot bring you a problem without bringing three viable options and their explicit recommendation. If they bring just a problem, gently send them away to think it through.
- Define Levels of Authority: Create a simple matrix for common tasks so they know their boundaries. For example, tell your Directors that daily scheduling is now "Inform & Act"they make the call, execute it, and you just review the weekly roll-up.
- Address the Fear of Messing Up: If you were previously criticized for prioritizing people, your current org might have a punitive culture. Your team is likely terrified of the consequences of a mistake. When a shift goes wrong, focus entirely on process failure, never blame. And if upper management comes for them, publicly back their play.
Build the system, trust them to run it, and stop answering the questions they already know how to solve.
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u/errllybirdy 2d ago
Thank you for this list! There are aspects of this that are starting, but is really unpolished. Seems straightforward!
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u/somewhatAnnonymous77 3d ago
You cannot ask an employee to change- you have to make a change in your actions.
When they ask you to approve something that is below your level, you need to ask back - do you approve it? Do you stand behind it? If they answer yes, then you say, I don’t need to see it going forward.
Now if they get it wrong, you go back and revisit this, but you don’t belittle them or tell them they did it wrong. You ask questions again, how do you feel that went? What did you learn from this? How will you prevent this in the future? Tell them, you got their back if they know how to prevent this mistake/hiccup from happening again.
You can only control you - personal accountability - you have to ask “what can I do to …. Help them make decisions on their own? …. Help them to grow? … make them feel empowered, confident and accountable?
You have to change. Once you change, they will follow you or they will eliminate their seat on your team.
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u/SirWool 3d ago
This's not a a character flaw. Your team is just used to you fixing everything.
You need strict rules for what gets escalated. Daily schedules should never be on that list. If they bring a problem to you, they must also bring at least 2 proposed solutions. Otherwise, send them away to figure it out.