Goal Setting / Purpose / Innovation

Overruled

Decisions are best taken close to the work. Keep your ego in check and resist the urge to be the decider.

For your team to be truly effective, you need to trust them. Give them a mission, the tools and coaching to achieve it, and the autonomy they need to succeed.

In most cases you should encourage your team to make their own decisions. If you’re not letting them draw on their experience and skills, you’re wasting their time and the organisation’s money. But be careful not to take that to the extreme. You have a role to play too.

You have a rich experience of your own to draw on. It’s different from that of each person on your team and, in many cases, it will be more extensive. An important part of your job is to use that experience to challenge your team. Push them if you think they’re making a bad decision. Argue against it. Be ready to overrule it. Autonomy is important, but you’re not serving your team or your organisation if you allow people to make huge mistakes.

Overruling decisions should be the exception, not the rule. If you’re finding yourself making or overruling every decision, then you either have the wrong people on your team (and should be looking more closely at hiring standards and performance management) or you’re taking away their autonomy and need to step back. Watch yourself.