Founder dependency usually begins because asking the founder is fast. It becomes a growth constraint when routine approvals queue behind one person and the team stops practising judgment.
Diagnose the decision, not the founder’s workload
Shikha’s view is that a crowded diary is a symptom. The root cause is often an invisible decision system: authority is unclear, information sits in one person’s head, or the cost of a mistake has never been translated into a practical boundary.
Diagnostic questions
- Which three questions reach you most often each week?
- What information do you use to answer them that the team cannot see?
- Which decisions are high-consequence, and which are simply familiar?
- What customer, cash, deadline or reputation threshold should trigger escalation?
Founder Action
- Track founder interruptions for five working days.
- Group repeated questions and choose one frequent, moderate-risk decision.
- Name the owner, permitted range, required information and escalation trigger.
- Test the rule for two weeks; review exceptions without taking authority back.
Practical tool: the decision-right sentence
“The ___ role can decide ___ up to ___, using ___ information. Escalate only when ___.”
Track questions per week, decision waiting time, decisions completed inside the boundary and reversals.