Should leaders delegate real decision authority to employees, even for irreversible decisions, rather than retaining approval control themselves?

Harry Stebbings · Mar 20, 2024

For decisions that fall within a trusted report's remit, he doesn't want them messaging him to report the decision — given his full trust in them, they should just make the call and move on

He has full trust in the people he hires and respects them, so reporting decisions is unnecessary

Scope: speaking about his own media companies and funds

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Fabien Pinckaers · Feb 12, 2025

Employees should be given decision authority even over one-way-door decisions

People are smart — if they are unsure they will ask, and they won't do things against the company

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Nick Huber · Aug 21, 2023

Delegation is a lost art: it is not innate and is never taught in school, sports, or early careers, so very few people actually know how to do it

Decision delegation means telling someone what needs to be done and letting them solve problems dynamically, which is far more uncomfortable

16:46 Delegation is a rare untaught skill most people never learn

Nick Huber · Aug 21, 2023

Trust in employees should be built incrementally by making them own their problems and bring solutions, and expanding their responsibility as they prove they can decide well

Asking an employee how they would solve the problem both gives them practice making decisions and lets the manager see directly how they think, which is the only way to calibrate trust

19:57 Trust is built incrementally by having employees own problems and propose solutions

Harry Stebbings · Aug 21, 2023 · hedged

A founder can nearly always do a task better than a new joiner, which is what makes delegation so hard

He has done the work before and knows how it's done, so it feels easier to just do it himself

22:03 Founder can usually do the task better making delegation psychologically hard

Nick Huber · Aug 21, 2023

Delegation is slower and worse than doing it yourself at first, but it compounds until employees are better at the work than you are

Coaching someone through their own problem costs more time up front than solving it yourself, but investing in employees snowballs as they improve

22:18 Delegation is slower and worse at first but compounds over time

David Meyer · Nov 1, 2023

The workable CPO–CEO operating model is to get explicit CEO buy-in on a written list of objectives and the outcomes they drive, then send decisions out on an unless-you-disagree basis and execute relentlessly on silence

The key is being simpatico enough that low-frequency, high-bandwidth, ego-free communication is sufficient

51:38 Explicit buy in on objectives then execute on silence unless disagreement is the workable model

Fabien Pinckaers · Feb 12, 2025

Young hires are not responsible by default because the education system killed it, so companies must train responsibility by refusing to answer approval requests and telling people to decide themselves

If you answer the question about a $50 purchase, they will always ask you; if you tell them they're smart and should decide, your behaviour forces them to take responsibility

61:05 Refuse to answer approval requests to force employees to take responsibility

Jean-Michel Lemieux · Mar 20, 2024

Sharing decisions upward is not bothering your boss, it is tapping their brain, and leaders should build companies that use everyone's brain

The world is too complex not to use every available brain, so it would be stupid not to tap your boss's

29:52 Sharing decisions upward taps the bosss brain and strengthens the company

Jean-Michel Lemieux · Mar 20, 2024

Teams should agree explicitly on three tiers of decisions — root (near-irreversible, discuss together), trunk (medium, brainstorm optional), leaf (don't escalate) — rather than mandating a daily update ritual

It has to feel natural rather than imposed, and the framework tells people which decisions the boss actually cares about instead of implying he cares about all or none

30:13 Explicit three tier root trunk leaf decision framework clarifies what to escalate

Daniel Ek · Mar 8, 2021

Delegation decisions should start by classifying whether a problem is high variance (large upside and large downside) or low variance (limited upside, serious downside if botched)

You only need to be world-class at high-variance problems like product design; for low-variance ones like paying salaries the upside is capped but failure is very costly, so they should be handled reliably rather than by the CEO

6:43 Classify decisions by variance high upside downside vs low variance to decide what to delegate

Emilie Choi · Aug 23, 2021

The way to delegate without breeding risk-aversion is to build a data track record of whose recommendations turned out right over time, then empower those people

You can spot people with good insights by reviewing past decision patterns, and that earned track record justifies giving them authority

35:24 Build a track record of past recommendation accuracy then empower based on that data