£19 including VAT
The EA Decision Making and Autonomy Framework
Make decisions with confidence while knowing when to recommend, consult or escalate.
Experienced EAs often exercise sound judgement every day without a clearly defined mandate to make decisions. This guide helps you identify the decisions you can own, agree sensible escalation thresholds and build the trust needed for greater autonomy.
In short: a coaching guide and workbook for EAs and PAs who want clearer decision rights and more autonomy, covering recognising the decisions already on your desk, separating risk from routine, agreeing a practical framework, using clear recommendation language and reviewing decisions to build trust. Five coaching stages, 14 guided prompts and 38 fill-in spaces, as an online workbook and a 29-page PDF, for £19 including VAT.
What this guide will help you achieve
If you are asked to use your initiative but challenged every time you make a decision, it is hardly surprising that you hesitate. Autonomy does not appear because someone tells you to be more confident. It grows when expectations, risk and decision rights are clear. We are going to work out where you can act, where you should recommend and where you genuinely need approval.
How the guide works
Five coaching stages, each with practical next moves, 14 guided coaching prompts and 38 fill-in spaces you can complete online or in print. Every stage ends with what to do next, and the guide closes with a conversation you can practise, a note on what to do when it does not go to plan and your own 30, 60 and 90 day route.
- Stage 1: Recognise the decisions already on your desk
- Stage 2: Separate risk from routine
- Stage 3: Agree a practical decision framework
- Stage 4: Use clear recommendation language
- Stage 5: Review decisions to build trust
Who it is for
- An EA or PA who is told to use initiative and then second-guessed when they do.
- Anyone who wants an agreed set of decision rights with their executive rather than an unspoken one.
- An assistant stepping up to support a more senior leader, where the stakes of each decision are higher.
What you get
The interactive online workbook, which saves your answers on your own device, and the same guide as a 29-page PDF to print and write in. Both are yours straight after payment and are emailed to you as well. £19 including VAT.
This is guide 08 of 12 in The eavolve Coaching Guides, and it is also included in the The Strategic EA bundle with Stop Waiting to Be Strategic and The Executive Time and Capacity Audit for £49.
Questions before you buy
It depends on risk, not on confidence. Routine decisions with low cost if wrong are yours to own; higher-risk ones need a recommendation or a consultation; a few genuinely need approval. The EA Decision Making and Autonomy Framework helps you map the decisions already on your desk, separate risk from routine and agree a practical framework with your executive.
Autonomy grows when expectations, risk and decision rights are clear and when decisions are reviewed afterwards, which builds trust. The guide shows you how to use clear recommendation language and how to review decisions with your executive so the boundaries widen over time.
Each guide comes two ways. The interactive online workbook opens in your browser, saves your answers on your own device as you go and can be printed or saved as a PDF at any point. The same guide is also supplied as a 28-page PDF if you would rather print it and write by hand. Both are yours straight after payment, and the links are emailed to you as well.
Payment is taken by Stripe. As soon as it goes through you are taken to your download page, where every guide you have bought is listed, and the same links are emailed to the address you used at checkout. If anything goes wrong, email emily@eavolve.co.uk and we will send the guide directly.
No. It is a coaching guide and workbook built around one challenge, written so it feels as though your eavolve coach is sitting alongside you. You work through five stages at your own pace, with practical next moves at the end of each one, and you can come back to it as the conversation comes round again.
Yes. Stripe sends a receipt that includes VAT, which most organisations accept for expenses. If you need a formal invoice, email emily@eavolve.co.uk before you buy. The Business Case for EA Development guide walks through how to ask for development funding if that is the conversation you are facing.
Every guide points to the next step if you want one. One-to-one coaching with Emily or Lily goes deeper on your own situation, and a free 30-minute discovery call is the place to work out whether that would help. Prices for coaching are on the EA & PA Coaching page.
