Why Being Always Available Kills Employee Decision-Making

Your team won't make decisions because you're always available to make them. Employee decision-making is the critical element that separates founder-dependent companies from team-driven ones. In this episode, Gene shares a breakthrough from one of his founder clients who discovered that strategic unavailability forces his team to think independently. By blocking off time and removing himself from the equation, his leadership team started making decisions without him and built the ownership and grit required to scale. You'll learn why your availability is the enemy of employee decision-making, how to design strategic unavailability as a delegation framework, and why stepping back is the fastest way to move from bottleneck to freedom. Employee decision-making isn't given. It's claimed when your team has no choice but to think for themselves. If you want a business that runs without you, start here. Episode Highlights & Time Stamps 0:09 Too Available Hurts Decisions 3:53 Absence Forces Growth 6:09 Strategic Unavailability Works What You'll Learn ✅Why being too available can unintentionally create employee dependency ✅How leaders can empower employees to think and make decisions for themselves ✅Why confidence and ownership grow through real decision-making experience ✅How to create decision-making frameworks that employees can actually use ✅The importance of distinguishing between decisions employees can make and decisions that require leadership involvement ✅How strategically stepping away can accelerate team development ✅Why founders should schedule intentional time away from the business ✅How the concept of one-way doors and two-way doors can help teams make decisions faster ✅Why mistakes and setbacks are essential to developing leadership capacity ✅How to move from working in the business to working on the business Resources & Next Steps Ready to take your leadership energy to the next level? Explore free training and resources at https://training.coreelevation.com/ and https://freebook.coreelevation.com/ to help you identify energy leaks, strengthen your leadership presence, and elevate your team's performance. 🌐 Explore More: https://training.coreelevation.com/ 🎧 Listen to the Full Episode: Growth Think Tank Podcast

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  Every entrepreneur I know and I talk to on a regular basis wants their team to make more decisions. Employee decision making isn't just something that happens. It happens because you're intentional about it as a leader. When you think about employee decision making, I want you to really think about this. What is getting in the way of them making their decisions? I could give you so many conversations I've had over the years in this leadership coaching and founder/CEO coaching that I do that would help you understand why being too available actually hurts employee decision making. Hi, my name is Gene Hammett. I am a founder coach, CEO coach. We work with teams that are really dependent on the leader.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  That founder dependency gets in the way of not just growth, but having the kind of company of your dreams. So, when you think about where you are with your business right now, we create content for people like you, but we also have a new book. That new book, to reach down and get it, Get Founder Freedom. If you want to be free in your business, then you want to understand these eight freedoms that are critical for your success. A recent client of mine read the book. He was so excited about it. He's like, "It's so true. It's so true." And this is one of the core elements that comes from that. And I'm going to share with you the story that he was talking about employee decision making. It will help you connect the dots. So, if you want the free book, just go to GetFounderFreedom.com. You can download it for free today. So, let's talk about employee decision making. What

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  is really the issue? When I have had the conversations over the years with clients about the decision making that is going on in their business or not going on, one of the things I've realized is when you're too available, it's a crush. Being there to stop by, "Give me a minute. Let me just talk this through with you," sounds very helpful and supportive, and it is, but it also gets in the way of them taking ownership. It gets in the way of them thinking for themselves. It gets in the way of prioritizing what's next. And you want to make sure that we're installing the capacity for them to think for themselves instead of you thinking for them or someone else. And so, when you are so available, they don't do the work. And then they are robbed of the confidence that

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  comes along with making those decisions. They also, the grit that it takes when they make the wrong decision of finding the right path forward. All of that comes with you being too available. So, when I'm working with leaders around this, one of the things I help them try to do about employee decision making is we will get down really specific to what kind of decisions are you making a lot of? And take one of those and start to build a rubric or a decision making framework that allows you to do this. I could come up with many, many examples, but you probably have your own questions you answer all the time. And it may be around what work is next? What do we do when there's a problem? How

• 2:52Speaker 00

  do we handle this client is upset? And all of those things are important, not just to handle, but to have them learn the capacity to handle themselves. That employee decision making doesn't just happen overnight. It happens over time. And when you're too available, they're not doing it. And you want to give them that framework of how they're made. You want to pull it out of your head and out of your gut and put it into hopefully written so that they can follow this and they can refine it and they learn to use that decision making framework. So, that's really important. If you're listening to this show, chances are you're a founder who's built something significant, but you're still too deep in the day to day to see the path forward. That's

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  exactly what the Founder Freedom Strategy Call is for. It's free. It's 30 minutes with me personally. And we'll pinpoint exactly what's keeping you stuck and what you need to do about it. Book your time with me at my personal URL, schedulewithgene.com. Now, back to the podcast. I want to share a story with you because I want to say this because it makes me smile, but absence forces growth. What I mean by that is when I was talking to a client who'd been working with me for about a year and we were going through some of the impact of over the last year, I was very excited to hear from this client. I won't share with you out of confidentiality who it was because I didn't get permission to do that, but I do hope to share that story with you on the podcast here soon. But he was telling me

• 4:19Speaker 00

  how his team was stepping up and making decisions that they weren't making before. They were deciding how to handle a people problem, when to let someone go. They were deciding how to handle customer problems. They were deciding how to prioritize jobs that worked through this because they were at capacity, but it was a very important opportunity. And so, we needed to find a creative way to make it happen for this customer so that we could build a deeper, trustful, long-term, more profitable relationship with that customer. Because saying no would be the blanket answer. But those three initiatives probably are happening at scale within your business. And what this founder said to me

• 4:59Speaker 00

  was really interesting. And it all ties back to that absence forces growth. He goes, "When I'm not available, they have to make decisions when I'm not in the room because I've given them the power to do that. I've empowered them to do the employee decision making." And I was like, "Well, tell me what was going on?" He goes, "Well, I went on a trip. I was out of town for three days and there were some things that came up that they would normally text me about or call me about. And I told them I really wanted to just, I wasn't available. And so, they had to make these decisions." And I've seen this happen with many, many other people. And as he was reflecting this with me, we've already been talking about him taking off one day a week. And he wanted to take off on Wednesdays. I've had some clients say, "I want to start taking off on Fridays." And that's one of the first

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  steps you crawl, walk, run of not being there for your people. Now, they have to have the decision making frameworks. They have to have the power to make these decisions. They have to know what decisions they can make, which ones they shouldn't make. And all that should be through your coaching, through your leadership. But when you're not available, you're not there to get that, "Can I get a minute from you?" kind of moments. They're forced to do it themselves so that they continue to grow. And I want to impress that upon you. That's a really critical element of this. So, how do you design being strategically unavailable? Well, again, it comes back to having the frameworks, knowing which decisions they can make, which ones they shouldn't make. And I've shared many different aspects

• 6:26Speaker 00

  of this. Jeff Bezos has a very simple concept of one-way doors and two-way doors. Real brief part of that is, one-way door decisions are not reversible very easily, expensive, or maybe just not even reversible at all. But two-way door decisions are easily reversible. We can do it, get feedback, and if it doesn't work, we can make a decision. We can go back to the way it was. And if you have that distinction, the two-way door decisions should be made quicker. And they should be making them without much input for you if they have the experience to make those decisions. I'm not telling you to just throw them out there and make all the decisions, but having the right structure and having the conversations and have the

• 7:08Speaker 00

  meetings and have the coaching around these decisions and having the frameworks to go with it. But then, you know, the second part of this is don't be there for them. Being too available makes it hard for them to have the confidence to handle things on themselves. So, schedule time out of the office. That sounds great, right? Schedule a specific day where you want to be, go do your own thing. Maybe you work from home and still working because you need to, but you're able to have that time for yourself strategically and working, you know, on the business instead of in the business. Or maybe you really need some time to relax, whatever that is for you, fishing, golf, other things. Or maybe you want to spend time with your family. Whatever it is for you, it's okay to do that

• 7:52Speaker 00

  when you're building the team. And actually, there's a leadership decision behind it that makes a lot of sense. So, all this being said, you want to make sure, if you want to, your employees to make decisions. And employee decision making doesn't just happen because you want it to. It happens with intentionality. It happens with the right leadership. I'm giving you a play here. I'm giving you some support through the stories and examples of this. Hopefully, you've got enough to run with. If I can help you in any way, please let me know. If you feel like you want to download the book, at GetFounderFreedom.com. It's absolutely for free right now, and you can go do that immediately. But if you want to go a step further, if you really feel like you want to just have a conversation with me because I feel like, you know, I could unlock something for you, I'm happy

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  to do that. Schedulewithgene.com is your next step. That schedulewithgene.com is for leaders that have 15 or more employees that really are looking to step their game up. I'm not going to pitch you. I want to help you. So, you'll take a chance on that. It'll be worth it. I've been doing this for about 16 years. I'd love to give you some of that wisdom and insight. I'm not saying it's going to be easy to take it. You're coachable. You're looking for, you know, to understand your own blind spots and to move forward. Schedule with Gene is your next step or schedulewithgene.com. When you think of growth and you think of leadership, think of growth. As always, encourage you to see me.