The Decision Charter: Stop Being the Tie-Breaker

Your team keeps asking you to make decisions they should own.

Product wants you to prioritize the roadmap. Sales wants you to approve the discount. Engineering wants you to decide on the tech stack. Marketing wants you to choose the messaging.

Every. Single. Day.

You hired smart, capable leaders. So why are they treating you like the Supreme Court?

The answer isn’t that your team lacks judgment. It’s that they lack clarity.

They don’t know who owns what decisions.

And when ownership is unclear, everything defaults upward—to you.

The Cost of Being the Default Tie-Breaker

Let me paint a picture you’ll recognize.

It’s Tuesday morning. You have three “quick sync” meetings on your calendar:

• 9:00am: Product and Sales can’t agree on Q2 roadmap priorities
• 10:00am: Engineering and Design are stuck on whether to rebuild or patch the legacy system
• 11:00am: Two VPs need you to break a tie on budget allocation

By noon, you’ve made three decisions that should have been resolved three levels down.

You’ve also:

• Delayed all three decisions by days (because they had to wait for your calendar)
• Created resentment (the “losing” side feels overruled)
• Trained your team to escalate instead of decide
• Burned 3 hours you needed for strategic work

This is the Referee Tax—and it compounds every week.

One CEO I worked with was spending 8-10 hours per week as the tie-breaker on decisions ranging from feature prioritization to office snacks. His calendar looked like a courtroom docket.

When I asked him, “What would you do with 8 extra hours per week?” he didn’t hesitate: “Actually lead this company.”

Why Smart Teams Escalate (Even When They Shouldn’t)

Here’s the thing: your team isn’t lazy or incompetent.

They’re rationally risk-averse in the absence of clear decision rights.

Think about it from their perspective:

Scenario 1: They make the decision themselves.

• If it goes well → you probably won’t notice (it’s their job)
• If it goes poorly → they get blamed for overstepping

Scenario 2: They escalate to you.

• If it goes well → they executed your decision (safe)
• If it goes poorly → you made the call (they’re off the hook)

The incentive structure rewards escalation.

Add to this the fact that most companies have never explicitly defined who owns what decisions, and you get:

• Product thinks they own roadmap prioritization (but Sales keeps overruling them)
• Sales thinks they own pricing (but Finance keeps saying no)
• Engineering thinks they own architecture (but the CTO keeps stepping in)

Everyone’s operating with different assumptions. So they escalate to you to avoid stepping on toes.

The solution isn’t better people. It’s better systems.

What Is a Decision Charter?

A Decision Charter is a simple framework that answers three questions for every recurring decision in your company:

1. Who owns this decision? (Individual, team, or committee)
2. When does it escalate? (What triggers require next-level approval)
3. Who’s the tie-breaker? (If two owners disagree, who has final say)

That’s it. Three questions. But the clarity they create is transformative.

How to Build Your Decision Charter (4 Steps)

Step 1: Inventory Your Recurring Decisions

Start by listing 20-30 decisions that happen repeatedly in your company.

Examples:

• Product roadmap prioritization
• Feature requests from large customers
• Pricing and discount approvals
• Hiring decisions (who to make offers to)
• Budget allocation across departments
• Marketing campaign approvals
• Tech stack choices
• Vendor contracts over $X
• Office policies (remote work, benefits, etc.)
• Customer escalations

Don’t try to capture every decision. Focus on the ones that happen at least quarterly, currently cause confusion or conflict, and frequently land on your desk.

Pro tip: Ask your leadership team, “What decisions do you wish were clearer?” You’ll get 80% of your list in 10 minutes.

Step 2: Assign Clear Ownership

For each decision, assign one of four ownership levels:

Level 1: Individual Owner (Decide & Inform)
One person makes the call and informs others afterward.

Example: VP Product owns roadmap prioritization. They decide, then communicate to Sales and Engineering.

Level 2: Team Decision (Consult & Decide)
One person owns the decision but must consult specific stakeholders first.

Example: VP Sales owns pricing, but must consult Finance and Product before finalizing.

Level 3: Committee Decision (Consensus Required)
A defined group must reach agreement (or majority vote).

Example: Executive team decides budget allocation across departments (CEO, COO, CFO, CTO vote).

Level 4: Executive/CEO Decision
Only the CEO (or specific executive) can make this call.

Example: CEO owns M&A decisions, major pivots, or executive hires.

The key: Every decision has ONE owner (even if it’s a committee). No “shared ownership” or “collaborative decision-making” without a defined process.

Step 3: Define Escalation Criteria

This is where most companies fail. They assign ownership but don’t clarify when a decision should escalate to the next level.

Without escalation criteria:
“VP Product owns roadmap prioritization.”
→ But what if a $5M customer demands a feature? Does that escalate to CEO?

With escalation criteria:
“VP Product owns roadmap prioritization. Escalates to CEO if:

• Customer revenue >$2M annually
• Feature requires >6 months of engineering time
• Strategic pivot (new market, new product line)”

For each decision, define 2-3 triggers that require escalation:

• Dollar thresholds (budget >$X)
• Strategic impact (affects company direction)
• Cross-functional conflict (two VPs disagree)
• Risk level (legal, regulatory, reputational)
• Timeline (decision needed in <24 hours)

Step 4: Establish Tie-Breaker Rules

Even with clear ownership, conflicts arise. Two owners have overlapping domains. Stakeholders disagree on the right call.

Without tie-breaker rules:
Product and Sales argue for weeks about roadmap priorities. Eventually it lands on CEO’s desk (back to square one).

With tie-breaker rules:
“If Product and Sales disagree on roadmap priorities, VP Product has final say. Sales can escalate to CEO only if customer revenue >$2M.”

Tie-breaker rules create clarity:

• Who has final say when owners disagree?
• What’s the escalation path if someone disagrees with the tie-breaker?
• How quickly must the tie-breaker decide? (24 hours? 1 week?)

Real-World Example: 120-Person SaaS Company

The Problem:

Product and Sales were in constant collision over roadmap priorities. Every sprint planning session ended in escalation to the CEO.

Sales would say: “Customer X is threatening to churn unless we build Feature Y.”

Product would say: “Feature Y doesn’t align with our strategy. We should focus on our roadmap.”

Both would turn to the CEO: “You decide.”

The CEO was spending 8-10 hours per week mediating these disputes. Decisions took too long. Resentment grew. The roadmap slipped.

The Solution:

They built a Decision Charter for roadmap prioritization with clear ownership (VP Product), escalation criteria (revenue thresholds, strategic impact), and tie-breaker rules.

The Results (Within One Quarter):

• Disputes dropped by 70%
• CEO’s weekly “referee hours” fell from 10 to under 2
• Roadmap velocity increased (decisions made in days, not weeks)
• Sales and Product learned to align before escalating

The CEO’s reflection:
“I didn’t realize how much time I was spending being the tie-breaker. The Decision Charter gave my team permission to decide—and gave me my time back.”

What Changes When You Have a Decision Charter

Before:

• “I need to ask [CEO] about this.”
• Decisions take 1-2 weeks (waiting for executive calendars)
• Teams feel disempowered (“I can’t make that call”)
• Executives spend 60% of time refereeing

After:

• “I own this decision. Here’s what I’m doing.”
• Decisions take 1-2 days (clear owners act quickly)
• Teams feel empowered (“I know what I can decide”)
• Executives spend 60% of time on strategy

Your Next Step

If you’re spending 5+ hours per week as the tie-breaker on decisions others should own, start here:

This week:

1. List 10 decisions that frequently escalate to you
2. For each one, ask: “Who should own this?”
3. Draft escalation criteria and tie-breaker rules
4. Share with your leadership team and get feedback

Within 30 days: You’ll reclaim 5-8 hours per week. Your team will make faster decisions. Conflicts will resolve before reaching you.

And you’ll finally have time to actually lead your company instead of refereeing it.

Want help building your Decision Charter?

If you want to see where your decision-making is breaking down, take the Executive Escalation Assessment—a free 10-minute diagnostic that shows you exactly where your gaps are.

Or, if you’re ready to build these systems with expert guidance, check out Lead Better—a 2-week leadership sprint where you’ll master decision-making frameworks (plus delegation, feedback, priorities, and alignment).