Intensive workshop · Leadership
What is yours to decide now
The appointment changed the list of decisions that belong to you, and nobody handed it over in writing. Part of what you used to ask about is now yours, and part of what you now settle never was.
- Duration
- 3 hours 30 min
- Delivery
- On site · Virtual
- Participants
- From 8 to 18 participants
- Investment
- Request a quote
Investment depends on scope, number of participants and delivery mode. We prepare a proposal at no obligation.
The problem it solves
There are two symmetrical mistakes in a new supervisor's first months. The first is deciding something that was not theirs, usually in good faith and in a hurry: committing to a date that affects another area, authorising an exception to a rule they did not write, promising an adjustment that needs approval from above. The second is sending up what genuinely was theirs, a shift swap, a small purchase inside their limit, an ordinary complaint, because asking feels safer than settling it.
The team reads both mistakes accurately and responds to each. When everything goes up, people stop bringing matters to the new supervisor and go back to speaking directly with the previous one, who is often the same person now sitting a level above. When decisions are taken outside the boundary, the correction comes down from above, sometimes in front of others, and from then on what the supervisor says is heard as provisional.
Nobody tells them. From above, constant checking looks like prudence; from below it looks like a lack of weight, so the boundary never gets written. The supervisor concludes they lack formal authority, when what is missing is an explicit agreement about which decisions are theirs, which are not, and what to do with the ones sitting in between.
What it covers
The workshop deals with a single question, the one that orders any new supervisor's first months: what is yours to decide now. It does not cover leadership in general or the running of teams. It works on one person's decision perimeter and on what happens at its edges.
The first part is classification. Each participant writes down the decisions that crossed their desk in recent weeks and sorts them into four columns: clearly mine, clearly my manager's, not a decision at all but a badly worded question, and doubtful. That fourth column is the material for the rest of the session, because it is where both mistakes are made.
The second part prepares the conversation that rarely happens. Participants practise asking a manager to draw the boundary by bringing a draft rather than an open question, with amounts, categories of matter and exceptions already written out. They also work on what to do when the manager will not be specific, which is a common case: how to propose a provisional limit, how to report what was decided under it, and how practice turns into agreement over time.
The third part is practice. Through role play participants rehearse escalating a decision without handing it away, bringing the situation, their own recommendation and what they need from above; settling a case no rule covers; asking for cooperation from an area they hold no authority over; and holding a decision made above them that they do not agree with in front of their team. The closing section works on communicating the perimeter downward: what is decided, what is being consulted on, and what is not open for discussion.
What participants learn
- Identify who each decision reaching your desk actually belongs to.
- Design a draft decision boundary to agree with your manager.
- Apply an escalation format carrying the situation, a recommendation and an explicit request.
- Evaluate a case no rule covers and settle it on a criterion you can explain.
- Develop a way of asking for cooperation from areas you hold no authority over.
Agenda
- The four columns: yours, your manager's, a badly worded question, doubtful
- The two symmetrical mistakes of the first months
- Asking for a boundary by bringing a draft instead of an open question
- What to do when your manager will not be specific
- Escalating a decision without handing it away
- Deciding when no rule covers the case
- Cooperation without authority over the other area
- Holding a decision you did not agree with in front of your team
What the organisation leaves with
- A written draft of the participant's own decision boundary, ready to agree with their manager.
- An escalation format with situation, recommendation and explicit request.
- The participant's list of doubtful decisions, classified, with the pending conversation identified.
- The team can tell which matters are decided, which are being consulted on and which are not open for discussion.
Programme details
- Format
- Intensive workshop
- Also available as
- Workshop · Corporate training day
- Languages
- Español · English
- Includes
- Participant workbook
- Action plan
- Post-training resources
- Facilitation
- ALUD Consulting LLC — Global Business Transformation.
Who it is for
- Supervisors appointed in recent months, responsible for a team for the first time.
- Coordinators and area leads who run work without any written delegation.
- Professionals who took on responsibility for people without a formal change of title.
- Managers who have just taken on new supervisors and want to settle the perimeter with them.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this the same as a decision-making workshop?
- It is not. Deciding under pressure and with incomplete information belongs to a different programme. This session works on what comes before that: which decisions belong to this person in this post, and what they do with the ones that do not.
- Is it useful if leadership will not put a boundary in writing?
- Partly, and it is fair to say so upfront. The participant leaves with a draft and a way to propose it, but a perimeter is agreed between two parties. Where ambiguity is preferred above, what remains is a reasonable practice and a conversation that will need repeating.
- Should supervisors attend together with their own managers?
- It helps, with one condition. If the manager is present, the sorting of doubtful decisions has to stay just as candid, and that only happens where there is enough trust. Where there is not, two sessions and a conversation afterwards work better.
- Does it apply to someone who leads without a formal supervisor title?
- It applies, sometimes more urgently. Anyone coordinating without an appointment has the problem in its sharpest form, because their perimeter is written nowhere and depends entirely on what they agree with whoever does decide.
Request this programme
Tell us the context and we will prepare a proposal tailored to your organisation. No obligation.
Working this inside the organisation
If this challenge will not be settled in one session, ALUD Consulting LLC works it as consulting: management consulting, human resources, strategy, organisational design, leadership development and business transformation.