Own the Call, or Someone Else Will.
You're leading a team, which means every day is a contest for "what's most important right now." Some days it's just getting through your calendar. Other days it's heavier: working on next year’s strategy, a launch that is slipping, financial reviews.
You know this rhythm already.
Here's what wins that contest more often than you'd think, whether you name it or not: your ability to make a clear call and stand behind it. Your job isn't to make the process feel good to everyone. It's to decide. You can be collaborative and still keep the final call off the committee agenda. The more clearly you own a decision, in fact, the more collaborative you come across, because your team never has to guess where they stand or wonder if their input actually mattered.
That ownership starts with two things only you can do:
Set the tone for how decisions get made on your team.
Give people clarity on which decisions are delegated to them and which ones you're keeping.
Skip either one, and your team fills the gap with guesswork.
Why clarity in decision-making matters
Most teams don't fall apart over an idea. They fall apart because nobody knows who has the final say, and there was no process for getting there.
That's yours to fix. Before the next decision lands on your desk, run it through three questions:
Who's the decision-maker (or decision-makers)
How will input be gathered, and from whom?
What happens once the decision is made?
Answer those out loud before you need them. That's what gives your team a process they can rely on instead of a black box they have to guess at.
External clarity: avoiding confusion while owning the decision
Here's the sentence that solves most of the confusion on a team before it starts: you decide who decides. And you decide when "you" decide versus when "we" decide.
Decision-making is one of the bigger sources of tension on any team, and when you're the one holding the pen, it's easy for people to feel shut out or unsure where they stand. Structure and transparency close that gap faster than another meeting will.
Invite input clearly, explain why you're asking for it, show people you actually read what they gave you, and communicate the final choice when it's time. Something like this works:
"Hey team! We're gathering ideas for upcoming product names before the executive team makes a final decision. I'd like each of you to take a few minutes today to see if you have any favorites that have stood out to you over the last few months. If you do, please provide them to me by 3:30 PM EST. I'll be culling through the ideas and presenting some top picks toward the end of the day, and I'll keep you updated on how everyone moves forward. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this."
That works for a single ask on a single team. Once you're managing leaders and cross-functional teams, invitation isn't enough. You need a system.
Here's what's worked best for me, and for the clients I coach: you already know most of the decisions that come up, both day-to-day and strategic, because they are usually frequent. Build the list of those decisions you know come up frequently, and a few that are critical but may be rare; then link every one to a role in your team and a category:
Category A: They decide, and they inform you once it's done, within a timeframe you've set together. Some of these carry more urgency than others, and the timeline should reflect that.
Category B: They bring you in before it's decided, and the two of you work out the call together.
Category C: You decide, and they escalate it to you within a timeframe you've set.
Three categories, three clear rules. No more guessing about who's holding the pen on any given decision.
Set the tone for your team: lead by example
Your team is watching you more closely than you think.
They notice whether you ask for input and actually use it. They notice whether you communicate clearly. And they notice whether you hold your ground when things get uncomfortable, or fold the first time someone pushes back.
You don't need to be perfect at this. You need to be intentional. A few ways to do it:
Pause and check yourself. Is this decision rooted in strategy, or in whatever bias got there first?
Say your process out loud. "We'll gather input this week, decide early next week, and move forward from there."
Welcome the challenge. Someone pushing back on your logic doesn't make you less decisive. It makes the decision better, and it makes you more credible.
Move with clarity once it's decided. Communicate it, then lead your team through it like you mean it.
Do this consistently, and you get two things: Your team sees how you decide, and they learn to decide well without you.
Internal clarity: what's driving your decisions?
None of this advice holds true if you don't first understand what's steering your own thinking.
Your brain is wired to take shortcuts, heuristics that help you move fast under pressure. Useful, until they're not. A few that show up constantly in leadership:
Confirmation bias: You go looking for information that backs up what you already believe, and skim past the rest. You're sold on a new meeting structure, so you assume your team is too, even though nobody's actually said so.
False consensus effect: You assume more people agree with you than actually do.
Availability heuristic: You give more weight to whatever example is loudest or most recent, even when it's not the most relevant one. One person misses a deadline on a new tool, and suddenly you're ready to scrap the whole system.
Curse of knowledge: You forget what it's like not to know what you know, and you leave your team parsing shorthand that only makes sense in your own head.
Challenge facts versus assumptions: Before you commit, ask yourself one clear question: "Is this something I actually know, or something I've assumed long enough that it started to feel true?" That single question catches more bad decisions than another round of data ever will.
Before making any decision, ask yourself if the choice is driven by data or by bias. Pause long enough to actually answer.
So the next time you're working through a decision, notice what your team is actually watching. It isn't the answer you land on. It's how you got there, who you pulled in, and what you were willing to say out loud when you weren't sure yet.
That's what they'll carry into the decisions they make without you. Get that part right and the decision-making takes care of itself.
If this hit home, I’m right there with you. Follow along on my LinkedIn for more leadership and decision-making insights.
Dawn Garibaldi is a Leadership Transformation Expert, Executive Coach, and Founder of Amplify Strategy Group.
A former Fortune 50 executive with three decades of global leadership experience across five continents, she equips senior leaders to master complexity, own their presence, and build teams that are flat-out unstoppable. Through her signature coaching programs, strategies and workshops, Dawn equips executives to amplify their confidence, sharpen their edge, and lead with the kind of resilience that turns high-stakes moments into lasting impact.
Because getting back to killing it every day, no matter what gets thrown at you, is exactly what she helps leaders do.