No, the CEO is not always the decision-maker
One of the most common sources of inefficiency inside companies is not lack of talent, motivation or ambition.
It is decision making.
Decisions that take too long.
Decisions that are discussed endlessly but never owned.
Decisions that everyone assumes the CEO will eventually make.
And this is where many organizations quietly break.
When every decision flows upward, leaders become bottlenecks and teams lose ownership. When decisions are diffused across too many voices, nothing really moves forward.
The problem is rarely authority.
The problem is the absence of a clear decision system.
This is why I often introduce a very simple but powerful model with leadership teams: DARE.
Not as theory, but as a working tool.
The DARE decision model
D – Deciders
Deciders are the executives who are accountable for the decision.
They are the ones who ultimately decide.
They carry the responsibility for the outcome.
They live with the consequences.
Deciders are allowed to ask for more analysis.
They are allowed to challenge assumptions.
They are allowed to change their mind.
But once the decision is made, it is theirs.
This role answers one critical question:
Who decides, in the end?
Many companies never answer this clearly. And when no one knows who decides, decisions stall or escalate unnecessarily to the CEO.
A – Advisors
Advisors exist to bring judgement, experience and perspective.
They are consulted for insight, not for consensus.
They help surface risks and blind spots.
They challenge thinking when needed.
Advisors do not decide.
They are not accountable for the outcome.
A common mistake is confusing advice with alignment. Not everyone needs to be heard. The right people need to be heard.
R – Recommenders
Recommenders do the analytical work that enables good decisions.
They:
Explore options
Clarify trade-offs
Make assumptions explicit
Define what needs to be true for each option to succeed
And most importantly, they come with a recommendation.
Not just data.
Not just scenarios.
A point of view.
When recommenders do weak work, deciders are forced to rely on intuition alone. That is when decisions feel heavy and risky.
Strong recommenders reduce fear. They create clarity.
E – Execution stakeholders
Execution stakeholders are the people who will execute the decision.
They do not need to decide.
They need clarity.
They need to understand:
What was decided
Why it was decided
What is expected from them
Trying to involve execution stakeholders in deciding, in the name of buy-in, often creates confusion. Execution suffers when ownership is diluted.
Clear decisions enable fast execution.
Why this matters more than it seems
When decision roles are unclear, three things happen quietly inside organizations.
First, the CEO becomes the default decider. Not because they should, but because no system exists. This slows the company and exhausts leadership.
Second, teams disengage. If decisions always go up, people stop thinking critically and start waiting.
Third, execution weakens. When no one truly owns the decision, no one fully owns the outcome.
DARE Model fixes this by design.
It creates:
Faster decisions
Better analysis
Clear accountability
Stronger execution
And it reveals an uncomfortable truth.
If every decision needs the CEO, the issue is not leadership strength.
It is decision architecture.
Strong leadership is not about deciding everything.
It is about designing who decides what, and when.
That is how organizations scale without burning out their leaders or their teams.
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Content and ideas are fully mine. AI only helped with grammar and clarity because efficiency also matters.
