Managers who make every decision for their team stifle learning and motivation; creating policies that give staff choice builds better decision makers and prevents burnout.
A simple story about dressing his son in orange sparked a deeper insight: when leaders make choices for their people, they block two critical engines. First, each decision is a learning moment. By watching staff experiment, managers gain data about what works and what doesn't, sharpening future judgments. Second, autonomy fuels motivation; without choice, employees drift toward disengagement and burnout.
The post cites Kohn's research that adults burn out not from workload but from lack of control, and Ackoff's distinction between decisions and policies. A policy is a rule that frames decision making, like a hiring requirement or a late payment penalty, and it should be tied to a clear purpose. When the why behind a policy is visible, teams can adapt or retire it when it no longer serves.
Practical advice is to shift from issuing decisions to publishing policies that outline goals and rationales, then let staff decide within that framework. This creates a feedback loop where employees learn, stay motivated, and the organization benefits from richer data. The takeaway: good leadership is less about directing every move and more about setting the conditions for others to make good decisions themselves.
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