Why The Most Effective Leaders Have Moved from Decision-Makers to Enablers

Leadership used to be straightforward. The CEO knew more, decided more, and spoke while others listened. This worked because markets changed slowly, expertise was concentrated at the top, and hierarchy matched the pace of business. The CEO possessed both the knowledge and authority to guide the organization through gradual, manageable change. Not anymore.

Today, critical insights, information, and ideas come from the frontline—where customers interact, problems emerge, and opportunities appear. Sales representatives discover shifting buyer preferences months before they appear in quarterly reports. Product engineers identify technical limitations that could derail strategic plans. Customer service teams hear complaints that signal market disruption.

The fundamental assumptions of hierarchical decision-making have been overturned. Information isn't scarce anymore—it's overwhelming. Expertise isn't centralized—it's distributed across functions, geographies, and organizational levels. Change doesn't happen yearly—it happens hourly, demanding responses that traditional hierarchies simply cannot provide.

From knowing everything to enabling everyone

The philosopher Ray Dalio understood this shift early: "He who has the best information should make the decisions." But most organizations haven't caught up. Their structures still assume one person, or one functional head, can know enough, decide fast enough, and see far ahead enough. They can't. Today’s leaders face a fundamental choice: continue trying to know everything, or start enabling others everyone to contribute their best thinking.

To enable wholesale transformation, organizations can no longer rely on one person to make all decisions. The gap between how fast organizations need to move and how slowly decisions travel is where opportunities are lost. Our Global Leadership Monitor research of over 3,000 leaders found that 33% of C-suite leaders said that their competitors are able to transform faster than they are.

Why’s it’s so difficult for leaders to let go

The transition from decision-maker to enabler represents one of the most challenging mindset shifts for senior leaders. For those who built their careers on having the right answers, the prospect of empowering others to find those answers can be difficult.

Often, this resistance runs deeper than ego. It strikes at fundamental questions of identity and value. If you're not the person making critical decisions, what’s your purpose? If others possess the expertise once reserved for the C-suite, how do you justify your position? These aren't trivial concerns—they reflect genuine anxiety about relevance and contribution in a rapidly evolving leadership landscape.

The fear of losing control compounds these challenges. Many leaders worry that distributed decision-making leads to chaos, inconsistency, or strategic drift. They imagine scenarios where well-intentioned employees make choices that conflict with organizational priorities or create unintended consequences. The assumption that expertise correlates with hierarchy remains deeply embedded, making it difficult to trust that someone closer to the problem might actually understand it better.

But the most paralyzing fear may be the prospect of others making mistakes. Leaders who have spent decades perfecting their judgment might find it difficult to delegate that responsibility. They prefer the certainty of their own decisions—even slow ones—to the uncertainty of empowering others to decide quickly.

This psychological mindset and behavior shift requires redefining personal value as a leader. Success must shift from having the right answers to developing others' capability to find answers. From being indispensable to making others more capable. From controlling outcomes to creating conditions for success.

How to move from decision-making to enabling

Accelerating transformation and moving your leaders from being decision-makers to enablers demands intentional change across four key areas.

Amplification, not abdication

For CEOs and C-suite leaders, becoming orchestrators rather than controllers represents amplification, not abdication. It involves creating conditions for success rather than attempting to create success through personal effort alone.

Organizations that master distributed leadership don't just make decisions faster—they make better decisions because they're informed by diverse perspectives and real-time information. They don't just respond to change more quickly—they anticipate change more effectively because insights flow freely from every corner of the organization.

The shift from decision maker to enabler represents more than a leadership style change. When leaders focus on developing others' decision-making capabilities rather than making all decisions themselves, transformation accelerates organically.

In markets where speed of adaptation determines competitive advantage, the organizations that can distribute intelligence and authority most effectively will consistently outperform those that concentrate both at the top. The question isn't whether you can afford to let go of control. It's whether you can afford not to.

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Authors

Bob Marcus is a senior member of Russell Reynolds Associates’ Leadership Advisory practice. He is based in New York.
David Lange leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Global Development capability. He is based in Chicago.
Maja Hadziomerovic is a member of Russell Reynolds Associates’ Leadership Advisory practice. She is based in London.
Jennifer Flock leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Inclusion and Culture capability in Europe. She is based in Paris.