Where decision-making still returns to you

The business may have capable leaders and still rely on you for more decisions than anyone intended.

What your result suggests

Your answers suggest decisions or clarity may continue to depend heavily on you. That can reflect unclear authority, missing skills, genuine risk or well-established habits. More delegation slogans will not distinguish between these explanations.

This is a starting hypothesis, not a judgement about your ability.

Does any of this look familiar?

Consequential decisions wait until you are available.
Your leaders bring options but still seek your endorsement of the final choice.
The same issues return because people know your answer, not the principles behind it.

These are examples to consider, not claims about what your own responses prove.

Why this pattern might persist

Dependency can arise from genuine constraints: unclear authority, missing information, insufficient skills or decisions that rightly belong with the CEO. It can also be reinforced by habitual rescuing or overrides. Ed’s approach is to distinguish these recipes rather than issue blanket advice to delegate everything. A useful leadership structure makes the limits of authority explicit and builds people’s capacity to decide within them.

One experiment to run this week

You don't need to buy anything to begin. Choose a manageable situation and gather some evidence.

Track a recurring decision
Choose one decision that has come back to you at least three times.
Map the route
Who owns it? What information do they have? Where is escalation necessary? What happened on each occasion?
Change one condition
Clarify authority, share the decision principles or agree the specific risk that requires escalation.
Observe the next decision
Did it proceed appropriately without you? Was the quality of the decision maintained? What else needs work?

Three questions worth keeping

Where is my approval genuinely required?
Do people understand the decision principle, or only my preference?
What would a safe, independent decision look like?

Ed's principles: Find the recipe · Build independence, not permanent reliance.

What this result does NOT mean

A 16-question self-report is not a validated clinical or psychological assessment. It cannot identify the single cause of a leadership or organisational problem. Your other three dimensions and any close scores also matter. Another person may see the same situation differently.

In the original quiz, each dimension is scored from 0 to 12. The lowest score is shown as a possible starting point. Equal lowest scores use the disclosed order Self → Relational → Cultural → Leading leaders. This page does not independently calculate or verify that score.

Where to go next

The aim is not to become unavailable. It is to ensure others can think and act effectively without continuously borrowing your judgement.

Try the experiment first. If you'd like to explore a concrete pattern with Ed, get in touch through edley.net, or reply to an email you've already received from him. No programme place, price or outcome is promised here.

Retake the assessment

Read The CEO Bottleneck

Your diagnostic result identifies a possible starting point. The report explains the wider pattern: how a CEO's strengths can unintentionally increase the organisation's dependence on them, and how to investigate the causes rather than chase symptoms.

The free report includes a self-assessment and a practical seven-day experiment.

Get the free report