Debbie Lawrence

There's a woman in this community right now who has someone on her team who is outgrowing the room.

She may have noticed. She may not have yet.

But the person outgrowing the room has done the math.

Tomorrow in The Permission Slip, I'm writing about the Law of the Lid and how your leadership capacity is setting the ceiling for everyone below you. And how raising it is a daily, deliberate practice, not an annual event.

This one is for every woman who leads a team and wants to understand why her best people stay, and why they go.

Come and join the community of women who lead — reading and listening every Wednesday.

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If someone you lead or someone in your life is circling a decision they can't seem to make, here are 2 things you can do in 10 minutes:

1. Ask: "If you already knew the answer, what would it be?"
I don't know what it is about those words, but it's pure magic. More often than not, it does most of the work.

2. Then ask: "Are you waiting for their information or their permission?"
If it's information, call the room. That's what it's for.
If it's permission, if what's really needed is for everyone to agree before the decision can be owned, name that. Now.

Try this with one person this week.

The team that finally gets clarity isn't waiting for a better process.

They're waiting for a decision.

If this resonated, the full picture is in Issue #13 of The Permission Slip: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/06/17/are-you-being-collaborative-or-waiting-for-permission-to-lead/

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The broken playbook told us our currency as women who lead was our ability to keep everyone on board.

If the team agreed, we did it right.
If someone was unhappy with a decision, something went wrong.

That currency is buying nothing.

I heard from a client last week who sent her team a clear message after weeks of open conversation. Here's the decision. Here's why. Here's what we need from each of you to make implementation go well.

Two people on her team thanked her for finally making the call.

They'd been waiting.

The fear of disconnection that keeps the process going is almost never proportionate to what actually happens when you step through it.

Miss the issue? Read it here: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/06/17/are-you-being-collaborative-or-waiting-for-permission-to-lead/

Prefer to listen? It's on The Compassionate Leader School podcast — Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms.

Not yet a subscriber? www.debbielawrence.ca/signup

The old model of collaborative leadership has a problem.

Not because collaboration doesn't work. Genuine collaboration, when you need your team's information, experience, or perspective to make a better decision, is essential. It's a legitimate way to lead.

The problem is that the model got stretched.

Somewhere along the way it became: always involve the team. Always get buy-in. Always make sure everyone feels part of the decision.

And then the broken playbook made sure that using authority directly felt like a liability.

So the model doesn't just describe how to lead.

It describes how to avoid the cost of leading alone.

The question that changes this: Do I need their information, or do I want their permission?

Issue #13 of The Permission Slip is in inboxes now. Read it or listen to it.

Read it: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/06/17/are-you-being-collaborative-or-waiting-for-permission-to-lead/

Listen to it: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7kEjizIkhUewP2ncEylVw3

Not yet a subscriber? www.debbielawrence.ca/signup