A typical email:
Dear Boss,
Here are all the things going on with this project. And also this. Plus there’s this other thing we need to keep in mind. This too, which is really important. And I’m worried about this.
What should we do?
Employee
When you’re about to ask your boss to make a call on something, it’s worth stopping for a moment and asking what you’re doing and why. You have the most information, usually, so the questions you might ask yourself are:
1. Am I actually worse at making decisions than my boss?
2. Do I not have the authority to make decisions?
3. Or is neither of the above true and am I just avoiding responsibility for making a call?
The kicker is, the more you go ahead and decide stuff for yourself, the better you get at making decisions and the more authority you get (if this doesn’t happen, go work for someone else.)
Yes, sometimes you don’t know and/or you really need a thought partner, but I’d guess that happens 1 out of 5 times, maybe 1 out of 10 times, not most of the time.
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