A quote sits unsent. A routine refund waits for your approval. A customer question lands in your inbox even though someone else has the answer. These decisions form a queue that only you can clear.
Your involvement may have protected quality when the company was smaller. The useful question now is whether the work still needs your judgment, or whether everyone has learned to wait for it.
Make the waiting visible
For five working days, record decisions that come to you. Note what was requested, why the requester could not proceed, and how long the work waited. Use three explanations: missing information, unclear authority, or a decision that genuinely requires your involvement.
Do not use this record to grade the team. A person asking permission may be following exactly the rules you established.
Give one decision a clear owner
Choose a recurring, low-risk decision. Agree on the outcome, available information and limits of authority. Name the circumstances that should bring it back to you.
For example, a delivery coordinator might own routine customer updates based on confirmed information. Changing a contractual commitment would still require the appropriate review. This is an illustrative boundary, not a rule for every business.
Write the agreement in one sentence: “You own this decision when these conditions hold; involve me when this exception appears.” Give the person access to the information required to act.
Review the result
After a week, examine the quality of the decisions and the time spent waiting. If the experiment struggled, check training, information and boundaries before taking the entire responsibility back.