The targets didn’t move.
The plan didn’t change.
The effort stayed high.
So leaders start asking the usual questions:
Why is execution so hard?
Why are teams hesitant?
Why does everything take longer than it should?
Most people assume execution broke first. It didn’t.
What broke was decision rights.
In many companies, decision rights are never clearly designed. They’re implied. Assumed. Inherited from old org charts and outdated job descriptions. People know they’re “responsible,” but they’re not sure what they’re allowed to decide without asking first.
So they play it safe.
They gather more input.
They seek more alignment.
They escalate “just to be sure.”
Not because they’re weak—but because the system punishes wrong decisions more than slow ones.
This is the quiet beginning of missed targets.
When decision rights are unclear, managers stop making calls and start managing optics. They don’t want to be the one who decided too early, too boldly, or without enough buy-in. So decisions stretch. Work continues. Time passes.
From the outside, it looks like diligence.
From the inside, it’s hesitation wrapped in professionalism.
Eventually, the founder steps in.
They decide quickly. They unblock things. They move the company forward. And in that moment, everyone feels relief. Progress resumes. The issue is “handled.”
But the system just learned something dangerous.
It learned that decisions don’t need to land where the work is.
They just need to survive long enough to reach the top.
That’s how founder bottlenecks form—not through control, but through default. When decision rights are vague, authority concentrates upward. Everything unresolved flows to the same place.
And when everything flows upward, execution slows everywhere else.
Leadership teams usually respond by pushing accountability harder. More KPIs. More follow-ups. More reminders to “own the outcome.” But accountability without decision rights is just pressure with no release valve.
You can’t hold someone accountable for something they weren’t allowed to decide.
That’s the part most organizations miss.
Decision rights are the foundation of execution. They determine speed, confidence, and ownership long before effort ever matters. If decision rights are unclear, people hesitate. If people hesitate, escalation becomes normal. If escalation becomes normal, founders get buried.
And when founders are buried, strategy dies quietly under operational noise.
The fix is rarely motivational. It’s structural.
Who decides this—without asking?
Which decisions should never reach the founder?
What happens if a manager decides and it doesn’t work?
Until those answers are clear, execution will always feel harder than it needs to be.
Because execution doesn’t fail when people stop working.
It fails when no one knows who’s allowed to decide.
Too many companies have untrained leaders that fail. 