Why Everything Stalls When Every Decision Runs Through You—and How to Fix It
I’ve spent a lot of time with CEOs trying to figure out why their organizations aren’t moving as fast as they should. Revenue’s flat, innovation’s stalled, and decisions drag on for weeks. You can feel the weight of inertia, but you can’t quite find the source.
Here’s a harsh truth I had to learn myself: sometimes, the kink in the hose is you.
That concept—“the kink in the hose”—is something I dive into in my book, Great CEOs Are Lazy. It’s the bottleneck in your system, the point of constraint that limits your business’s flow. Remove it, and performance opens up. But spotting it can be not easy, especially when the kink looks a lot like the person sitting at the head of the table.
Let me introduce you to the CEO Switchboard Operator.
What Is a CEO Switchboard Operator?
Picture an old-school telephone operator from the 1940s. She sits at a giant board with cables, manually connecting one line to another. That system worked—for a while. One operator could handle 100 calls an hour. But bump it up to 200? Everything stalls. Connections drop. People wait. Progress halts.
Now, picture yourself, the CEO, as that operator. Every decision has to come through you. People line up at your office. Emails pile up—as do texts, Slack messages, and meetings—all waiting for your final word.
Congratulations: you’ve become the point of constraint.
The reality is, most CEOs don’t mean to become switchboard operators. It often starts with good intentions. You’re great at solving problems. It feels good to jump in and fix things. There’s a dopamine hit from being the hero. But over time, you’re not helping—you’re hobbling the team.
You’re training your organization to be dependent on you. And dependency is the enemy of scale.
How Does It Happen?
There are three main reasons leaders end up in this trap:
- Ego and the Fixer Instinct.
If you’ve built a career on being the smartest person in the room, it’s hard to let others make decisions. But if every call has to go through you, you’re not empowering your team—you’re exhausting yourself and slowing them down.
- Lack of Trust.
Maybe it’s a personal trait. Maybe you haven’t built the right team. Either way, if you don’t trust your people to make decisions, you’ll hold onto everything. And guess what? The team will feel it—and stop trying.
- Fear-Based Culture.
This one hurts to admit. If your people are afraid to make a call without checking with you, that’s on you. Maybe you’ve reacted poorly in the past when someone made a mistake. Perhaps you’ve unknowingly created a culture where asking for permission is safer than taking initiative. Either way, you’ve trained them to come to you first and wait.
How to Spot It
You don’t need a fancy consultant to tell you you’re the bottleneck. Just look around.
Where is the “inventory” piling up?
Not product inventory—decision inventory. Unanswered questions. Unapproved plans. Delayed launches. Stalled projects. If there’s a queue of people or problems waiting outside your office, guess what? You’ve got a backlog, and you’re the switchboard.
Sometimes it’s even more apparent: “It took two weeks to make that decision because you were on vacation.” If your absence grinds the whole machine to a halt, that’s not leadership. That’s a red flag.
What To Do About It
So, what if you recognize yourself in this description? First, take a breath. This behavior is fixable.
Here’s where to start:
- Refuse to Answer Every Question.
When someone brings you a decision they could make themselves, push it back. Say, “Here’s how I’d think about it—but you make the call.” Yes, it takes a little longer upfront. But over time, you build organizational muscle. People learn. They grow. And they stop needing you for everything.
- Build Trust—or Rebuild the Team.
If you’re holding back because you don’t trust your people, be honest with yourself: Is it your problem or their problem? If it’s a talent issue, make the tough call to upgrade the team. If it’s you, invest in training, mentoring, and letting go. You won’t grow until they do.
- Set Boundaries with Consequences.
Not every decision is equal. I use the “waterline” analogy. A bad call above the waterline? You can recover. Below the waterline? You sink. Teach your team the difference. Then delegate everything above the waterline—and accept the bumps that come with learning.
Finally, be brave enough to ask someone you trust: “Am I the switchboard?” You might not like what you hear. But hearing and acting on it could be the moment your business starts to move again.
