When you took over the team, your boss told you to run it however you thought best. So you spent a couple of weeks watching who carried what, worked out a fairer way to split the workload, and brought it to your boss before rolling it out. They said no before you finished explaining it.
Now you’re going back over that first conversation, trying to work out whether you misunderstood or they changed their mind.
What did “it’s your call” cover?
Most of the time your boss meant what they said. When they told you to run the team, they were thinking about the day-to-day decisions that never come up in their own meetings: who covers a shift, how you run your one-on-ones, which project goes first this week.
A workload change is different. If people complain or something slips, their boss hears about it and asks them what happened. So your boss still wants a say in those decisions, even though they never told you that.
What one reversal does to you both
After it happens once, you start checking small decisions with your boss before you make them. Your boss starts to wonder why you can’t decide anything on your own, and you start to think they won’t let you lead. Each of you is reacting to a limit only your boss knew about.
Some managers go the other way. I did. I had an explosive boss. I never knew if he was going to react positively or negatively to what I was saying, and there was no pattern I could learn. He didn’t exactly make it easy for me to implement my ideas, so often times I would implement them behind the scenes. The work got done that way. It was not good for my reputation as a team player.
Working around your boss gets the work done, and it costs you trust with the people above you.
How you bring a change matters
Compare these two:
I’d like to change how we split the work on the team.
I want to move the Friday reports from Dana to Luis and give Dana the vendor calls. Overtime stays the same, and nobody’s hours change. I think this is mine to decide, but it affects two people’s workload, so I wanted you to see it before Monday.
The second one tells your boss what changes, what it costs, and who it affects, which are the questions their own boss would ask them. It also says where you think the decision sits. If your boss sees it differently, you find out before you’ve told the team.
You’ve done this too
Some of you reading this have told someone on your team “it’s your call” and then stepped in. You had an answer in mind and didn’t say so. From their side, it looked the same as what your boss did to you. Telling them your limits when you hand over the work saves you both the second conversation.
Where your boss draws the line
Where a boss sets these limits depends on how they lead. A boss who leads with Precision often wants to see the plan before a process changes. A boss who leads with Heart often wants to know how the team will take it first. Once you know which pattern your boss leads from, you can tell which changes to bring them early.
One question for your next handoff
The next time your boss hands you something, ask: “Which decisions do you want to hear about before I make them, and which ones are you fine hearing about afterward?”
Your boss probably has an answer ready, even if they’ve never said it. Asking also tells them you plan to make the calls yourself.
Keep running into this with your boss?
The Managing Up Map shows where these gaps usually open and what to say before the next one.
