Decision Altitude: A Simple Framework to Clarify Who Decides What
- Jules Siegel-Hawley
- Oct 29
- 2 min read
In fast-growing companies, decision-making can quietly become the biggest tax on progress.
Ask ten people who makes the final call on a given issue, and you’ll get ten different answers. Some decisions get kicked upstairs. Others are made twice. Most just… stall.
As your organization becomes more complex, unclear decisions become more costly.
Decision Altitude helps leaders clarify ownership at four distinct levels. It is a simple, scalable framework that is designed to keep decisions at the right altitude.
The Four Levels of Altitude
1. Strategic Altitude
Scope: Company direction, capital allocation, existential bets.
Examples: Entering a new market, raising funding, M&A.
Owner: CEO, C-suite, Board.
2. Cross-Functional Altitude
Scope: Trade-offs across functions or priorities.
Examples: Product roadmap vs. sales commitments; operations vs. marketing push.
Owner: Leadership team — with clear tie-break authority.
3. Functional Altitude
Scope: Choices within a domain.
Examples: Marketing campaign design, engineering approach, finance policy.
Owner: Function leader (Head of X, Director, VP).
4. Team-Level Altitude
Scope: Day-to-day execution, closest to the work.
Examples: How to resolve a customer issue, which feature to test next, how to deliver a project.
Owner: Team leads and individual contributors.
How to Use It
Map real friction. Where are decisions stuck or looping?
Ask: At what level should this decision live, and who at that level owns it?
Clarify tie-breaks. Unclear escalation paths here create the heaviest drag.
Watch for drift. If decisions meant for teams are still being made by the CEO, that’s a scaling red flag.
Most bottlenecks happen when decisions are made at the wrong altitude.
Decision Altitude restores speed and coherence by matching decisions to their rightful owner, shifting the question from the political “Who’s in the room?” to the tactical “At what level should this be decided?”