How to Get Your Team Moving When Everyone Is Waiting for Permission
Most of the leaders I speak to right now are standing on the edge of something. A decision they keep circling, a move they keep deferring. They know what they want to do. They just haven't done it yet.
The Skydiving Analogy
The image I keep coming back to is skydiving. I haven't done it myself, though it's been on the list for a while. What strikes me about it is this: when you jump out of a plane with a parachute, you're not being reckless. You've trained for days. You know how to stabilise the moment you leave the aircraft. You know what to do if something goes wrong. The risk is real, but it's a prepared risk. So when the green light comes on, the only question is whether you'll go.
Life works the same way. You have been training for it your entire career. You've run through the worst-case scenarios. You know how to steady yourself when things get difficult. The difference is that when life gives you the green light, most people hesitate.
Waiting for the Right Moment
I did it for years. I wanted to be a coach for as long as I could remember, and I kept finding reasons why the time wasn't right.
"I'm not credible, I haven't got an MBA, I haven't held a senior management role, I haven't worked in enough varied roles."
So I went and did all of those things. Then I ran out of excuses. In the space of six weeks I finished my MBA, resigned from the senior management role I held, put my house on the market, started selling my possessions, and jumped. I knew the parachute would open. I had a great coach who pointed to real evidence of why she believed I could do it, and that gave me the confidence to go. She was my own personal jumpmaster.
The Odds Are Better Than You Think
What I've found, and what the evidence bears out, is that we fail about 20% as often as we expect to. So even when something feels like a 50/50 bet, it's closer to a 90% chance of working out. Those are good odds.
The skydiving analogy is useful here because it removes the option of a half-hearted attempt. Once you've jumped, you do everything in your power to make it work: the preparation, the training, and the commitment to the decision.
Research on visualising success points in the same direction.
Are you the bottleneck?
Take the two-minute assessment and see exactly where work is queueing around you, and what to hand over first.
People Who Jumped
In the past week alone, people I know have taken leaps that mattered enormously to them:
- Dived with sharks
- Applied for a role they'd written themselves off for
- Ended a relationship that was making them miserable
- One person left his apartment building for the first time in months after a long struggle with agoraphobia
These may look like different scales of event, but to each of them it was enormous. They jumped.
The Step Is Smaller Than It Looks
I'm not suggesting you sell everything and start over. But if there's something you've been wanting to do, and you keep finding reasons to delay it, the obstacle is rarely the thing you think it is.
There are people who can help you prepare. There are approaches that work. The step itself is usually smaller than it looks from the edge.
Where is the friction in your team?
The Leadership Friction Finder pinpoints where effort is leaking, so you fix the cause rather than the symptom.
When Your Team Is Waiting at the Edge Too
The same dynamic plays out inside organisations every day. Leaders hesitate, and so do the people around them. One of the most common things I hear from MDs and heads of function is that their teams won't move without being told to. But in most cases, the team isn't disengaged. They're waiting for a jumpmaster. Someone to point to the evidence, confirm the parachute is packed, and tell them the green light is on.
There is always a tension between handing over responsibility quickly and building genuine confidence and capability. Too many times teams have experienced delegation that went badly, handovers that were rushed, or tasks dropped on them without proper preparation. That erodes trust. It makes people cautious. And cautious people wait for permission.
If you want your team moving without hand-holding, you have to build the conditions that make movement feel safe and purposeful. Here is what that looks like in practice.
Align the challenge to something that matters
Make sure the responsibility you're handing over connects to goals the team member actually cares about, whether that's their own development, the team's performance, or the organisation's direction. Empower people to take on things that will make a difference to them and their career, not just things that are convenient for you to offload. When people can see why the jump matters, they're far more likely to take it.
Start from their starting point, not yours
What feels routine to you may feel enormous to them. Your explanations and expectations need to be calibrated to where they actually are, not where you were when you mastered the same task. Skipping this step is one of the most common reasons delegation fails. The person feels overwhelmed before they've begun, and they retreat to waiting for instructions.
Break the jump into stages
Complex responsibilities become manageable when they're broken into clear, incremental steps. Process maps, checklists, and a gradual increase in complexity all help. Build their confidence and understanding before you ramp things up. Show them the basics, let them land safely a few times, then increase the altitude.
Acknowledge that anxiety slows learning
Any concern about failing can significantly hinder progress. The research is consistent: learning in a psychologically safe environment, where mistakes are expected and examined rather than punished, leads to better long-term performance than relying on early luck. Creating that environment is your job as the leader, not theirs.
Creating a safe environment where it's okay to make mistakes is crucial for effective learning.
Use different methods to explain the same thing
People absorb new responsibilities differently. Combine verbal walkthroughs with visual aids and hands-on practice. Reinforce the same concept through more than one channel. This isn't about dumbing things down. It's about making sure the understanding actually lands.
Celebrate the small jumps
Recognise minor achievements explicitly. Ask people to identify what they're proud of before you give your own assessment. Positive reinforcement at the early stages builds the momentum that carries people through harder challenges later. A useful structure for feedback is Good, Better, Best: what went well, what could be improved, and what excellent looks like from here.
Adjust your expectations during the learning curve
Pace will slow when someone is acquiring a new skill. That's not a sign of failure. Plan for it. Work out what is most important to hand over first, sequence the rest, and resist the urge to take things back the moment progress feels slower than you'd like. Rushing the handover is how you end up with a team that never fully takes ownership.
The Leader as Jumpmaster
My coach didn't jump for me. She pointed to the evidence, confirmed I was ready, and made it clear she believed the parachute would open. That's what a good jumpmaster does. It's also what good leaders do for their teams.
If your team is standing at the edge waiting for permission, the question worth asking is whether you've done the work to help them feel prepared. Have you aligned the challenge to something meaningful? Have you broken it down? Have you made it safe to make mistakes? Have you celebrated the early wins?
If the answer to most of those is yes, then the green light is already on. They just need you to say so.
If this sounds like your week
Your managers are not the problem. They are where the problem is stuck.
When your last leadership spend was signed off, did anyone go back to those managers' bosses and ask what changed? That question is the JBL Outcome Standard, and it is how I work.
- Find the friction. A short diagnostic that shows which decisions are stalling, and at what level.
- Am I the bottleneck? Ten questions on where your week is actually going.
- How I work with GMs. Six weeks, one hour a week, up to twelve of your managers, scored by their own bosses.
- Beat Burnout, Boost Performance. The book.
- The High Performance Leader podcast.
Managers I work with reclaim around four hours a week, and their bosses score the change 8.75 out of 10. Would it be a crazy idea to find out how we did this? Book a scoping call.
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Get the Quick-Win PackQuestions managers ask about this
How can I stop my team waiting for permission to act?
Identify where decisions are stalling and who the bottlenecks are. Often managers are not the problem but where progress gets stuck. Use a simple diagnostic to find which decisions are delayed and at what level, then address those specific blockages to get the team moving again without waiting for unnecessary approvals.
What practical steps help leaders commit to difficult decisions?
Treat the decision like a prepared risk, similar to skydiving training. Visualise success and run through worst-case scenarios in advance. Recognise that hesitation often comes from fear, not lack of readiness. Once committed, focus on preparation and follow-through to increase the chance of success, which research shows is higher than we often expect.
Why do good managers delay taking action even when ready?
Many delay because they look for perfect timing or credentials they feel they lack. This creates excuses that hold them back. Confidence grows from recognising your experience and preparation already equip you to act. Waiting for a perfect moment often causes more harm than moving forward with careful planning and support.
How do I identify if I am the bottleneck in my team?
Ask yourself if decisions are waiting on your approval or input unnecessarily. Review recent stalled projects and consider if delays could be because of your hesitation or over-involvement. Use targeted questions about where time is spent in your week and which decisions are stuck to reveal if you are the bottleneck and adjust accordingly.
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Episodes of The High Performance Leader that cover the same ground.
Jimmy Burroughes
FounderFormer British Army officer and corporate GM who has transformed nearly 3,500 managers into leaders across 30+ organisations. Creator of the Simplify to Amplify methodology, author of Beat Burnout, Ignite Performance, and two-time Global Recognition Award winner.
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