IN THE ROOM #21 – Who actually owns this decision? (part 3 of 3)

Over the past two weeks, I've written about why leadership teams keep having the same conversations, and why accountability breaks down even when managers genuinely want to do better.

This week, we look at the root cause underneath both.

In most leadership teams, decisions get made. Or something that looks like a decision gets made. The meeting ends. Everyone nods. And people leave with a different understanding of what was just agreed.

Nobody was dishonest. Nobody was disengaged. But nobody explicitly owned the outcome either.

Decision ownership is one of the most underdiscussed problems in leadership. Not whether the decision was right, but whether anyone left the room really accountable for what happens next.

When ownership is unclear, execution stalls, and sometimes gets hand-balled around like a game of hot potato. Then people either wait for permission that never arrives, or go off on their own tangent. Assumptions get acted on that were never confirmed. The decision gets revisited. The same conversation finds its way back onto the agenda.

And the cycle starts again.

Clarity about who owns a decision, not just who was consulted, not just who contributed, but who is responsible for the outcome, fundamentally changes how a team executes. It's not a structural overhaul. It's a discipline. And it's one of the simplest, highest-leverage shifts a leadership team can make.

RACI is one practical way to approach this.

The honest question: in your last significant team decision, could everyone in the room name who owned it?

Comment "Room" if this reframes something you've been seeing.