For many years, I told myself I was being “responsible” by staying close to every decision. Being a self-diagnosed perfectionist, my desire to be fully immersed in the details is what success looked like to me.

I wanted to protect the mission. I wanted to avoid mistakes. I wanted to make sure we didn’t get surprised.

But if I’m honest—and sharing a bit of vulnerability here—there was another reason too: being the person everyone needed made me feel useful and valuable.

The problem is, that kind of leadership doesn’t scale. At some point, I had to face a tough reality:

The Hard Truth

If every decision had to route through me, I didn’t build alignment—I built a bottleneck.

Slow Decisions Are a Hidden Tax

In my world, slow decisions don’t look dramatic at first. They show up as:

  • A purchase request “waiting for review”
  • An IT service request stuck because no one wants to choose a path
  • An access issue delayed because approval is unclear
  • A hiring decision dragging while candidates disappear
  • A task’s schedule slipping because a risk and tradeoff conversation never happened

Nothing is “on fire”… until it is. Then you get the escalation and the scramble, the director’s attention, and everyone asking why it’s urgent now.

Most of the time, it was urgent weeks ago. We just didn’t decide.

The Two Ways Leaders Kill Decision Velocity (Usually With Good Intentions)

  • “Just run it by me”— This creates dependency. People stop thinking and start forwarding.
  • “Let’s talk about it in the next meeting”— This turns meetings into a waiting room for decisions.

Both are subtle. Both feel safe. Both slow everything down.

Strategic leadership isn’t about making every decision yourself. It’s about designing a system where the right decisions get made at the right level—fast.

The Shift: Your Job Is to Build Decision Rights

Here’s a simple way to think about it: tactical leaders own decisions. Strategic leaders own decision systems.

A decision system answers three questions clearly:

  • Who decides?
  • By when?
  • What happens if we’re wrong?

When those are unclear, people default to escalation or delay.

Reversible vs. Irreversible Decisions (This Changed How I Lead)

Not all decisions deserve the same amount of debate. One of the most practical frameworks I’ve started using splits decisions into two types:

Type 1: Irreversible (high cost to undo)

  • Contractual commitments
  • Safety/security policy changes
  • Major spend decisions
  • Structural org changes

These deserve rigor, pre-briefs, and clear stakeholder alignment.

Type 2: Reversible (low cost to undo)

  • Most process tweaks
  • Trial changes to cadence
  • Small tool/process experiments
  • Minor prioritization shifts

These should move quickly—because you can learn and adjust.

Know the Difference

If you treat every decision like Type 1, you’ll move at the speed of bureaucracy. If you treat every decision like Type 2, you’ll create chaos. Strategic leaders know the difference—and act accordingly.

What Good Looks Like

When decision velocity is working, it feels different:

  • Your team brings options + recommendation, not just problems
  • Decisions have timelines (even informal ones)
  • Escalations are higher quality and less frequent
  • People know what they can decide without asking
  • Rework drops because assumptions are clarified early
  • Meetings end with decisions, owners, and next actions

Bonus: This is one of the fastest ways to increase throughput without hiring more people.

The Practical Tools That Keep Decisions Moving

1. The One-Pager (for decisions that matter)

A good one-pager forces clarity and includes:

  • Problem statement (one sentence)
  • Context (what changed / why now)
  • Options (2–3 paths)
  • Recommendation (with rationale)
  • Risks / tradeoffs
  • Decision needed + deadline
  • Owner

It doesn’t need to be pretty. It needs to be clear.

2. Decision Thresholds (so everything doesn’t escalate)

This is the real unlock. Push decisions to the lowest level possible. Define thresholds like:

  • Dollars (spend levels)
  • Schedule impact (days/weeks)
  • Safety/security implications
  • Contractual implications (CO/COR involvement)
  • Reputation/mission risk

If the decision is inside thresholds, the owner decides. If it crosses thresholds, it escalates—with the one-pager. This prevents “I didn’t know if I could” paralysis and keeps things moving.

3. The Decision Log (so you don’t keep revisiting)

A simple log prevents the “Wait, what did we decide?” spiral and should include, at a minimum:

  • Decision
  • Date
  • Owner
  • Context
  • Any guardrails

This builds trust and saves time.

The Vulnerable Part: Letting Go of Being the “Final Stop”

For me, the hardest part of this wasn’t the process. It was identity.

If you’re used to being the person who always has the answer, it can feel uncomfortable to let decisions happen without you.

If your team can’t decide without you, you’re not protecting the mission—you’re slowing it down. Your job is to build leaders who can think, decide, and deliver. That’s what success at scale looks like.

Your One Commitment for This Week

Pick one decision category that keeps escalating to you—something that happens often. Then do three things:

  1. Define the threshold (when it should escalate vs. when it shouldn’t)
  2. Assign a clear decision owner
  3. Require “options + recommendation” when it does escalate

You’ll be surprised how fast the noise drops and the quality goes up.

Reflection Questions

  • Where am I unintentionally slowing decisions down?
  • What decisions should be made one level lower than they are today?
  • Which decisions are reversible that we’re treating like they’re irreversible?
  • Do my leaders bring options + recommendation—or just problems?
  • What’s one threshold I can define this week to reduce escalation?

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