When leaders don’t define decision guardrails early, decisions drift upward, risk feels unsafe, and teams stop building the muscle to decide for themselves.

In this episode of Let’s Talk, People, Emily sits down with Olesya Govorun, who leads organizational development and culture transformation at Pfizer, to unpack why ineffective decision-making is one of the most costly (and fixable) leadership challenges today.

Drawing on her work at Pfizer, including efforts to empower expert-level decision-making during the rapid development and launch of the COVID-19 vaccine, Olesya shares what it actually takes to move decisions closer to the work without sacrificing alignment or trust.

Together, they explore why decision rights often remain unclear, how over-involving leaders slows momentum, and what leaders can do to shift from being the final approver to building confident, capable decision-makers across their teams.

Whether you’re leading in a complex organization, navigating high-stakes change, or trying to speed up execution without losing rigor, this episode offers practical frameworks and mindset shifts to help you redesign how decisions get made and unlock better outcomes at every level.

Timestamps:

1. [00:16:40] Establishing Decision Guardrails Early – Olesya introduces the principle of Decision Guardrails - clarifying and agreeing upon which decisions can be fully owned, who gets to decide, and when a decision needs feedback or approval.
2. [00:19:34] Decision-Making as a Learnable Skill – Emily and Olesya explore how leaders can reduce the fear and risk tied to decision-making by adopting a learner’s mindset and providing the right supports like coaching, training, hands-on experience, and real-time feedback.
3. [00:22:31] Making It Safe for People to Make Decisions – Emily and Olesya unpack how psychologically safe teams create norms around risk-taking, having disagreement, and challenging ideas (not people) to make better decisions faster.
4. [00:26:11] Shifting the Role of the Leader from Decision Makers to Decision Builders – Olesya articulates that one of the most critical roles of leadership today is building others’ confidence and capability to decide.

Access the episode transcript.

Join the Conversation: This year we’re taking audience questions! Send in your toughest people management and leadership challenges, and we’ll anonymize them and tackle them in an upcoming episode. Email Abigail on our Let’s Talk, People team with your situation as a written note or voice memo to abigail@arosegroup.com.

Connect with Emily Frieze-Kemeny on LinkedIn and Instagram or explore her work through AROSE Group’s website.

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