![\"Diagram](\"/article-assets/mancanza-di-autonomia-nei-collaboratori/mancanza-di-autonomia-nei-collaboratori-autonomia-e-indipendenza.jpg\")
Do the simplest decisions often end up on the manager's desk?
\nBefore moving forward, do you frequently get requests for confirmation, authorization or a check?
\nDo some team members seem to freeze when faced with situations they could handle on their own?
\nWhen these dynamics keep repeating, it's easy to blame the problem on people's lack of initiative or responsibility.
\nIn reality, lack of autonomy is a more complex phenomenon and doesn't depend solely on the characteristics of the individual team member.
\nThis article analyzes the dynamics that limit people's ability to make decisions and how to develop genuine autonomy within a system (both in business and in personal life).
\nBefore focusing on finding a solution, you need to analyze the problem and understand its nature. You need to understand what it is, through what evidence it shows up, what causes generate it and how the mechanism that feeds it works. Only after this analysis can you tackle the problem effectively and solve it.
\nThe problem examined here is low autonomy in team members.
\nThe same problem can also be extended to other contexts, such as the relationship with children, a partner or customers, but here the focus is mainly on the workplace.
\nLack of autonomy at work shows up through a series of recurring signs that are worth listing so you can recognize them in your own situation.
\nAmong the most obvious signs is the inability to make decisions: some team members can't decide on their own and constantly need to check with the manager or get their approval.
\nOthers, when left on their own, freeze completely or make decisions that have negative consequences.
\nAnother sign is the need to be told the same instructions over and over. This situation is often interpreted as a memory problem, when in fact it is an autonomy problem.
\nIt isn't about forgetting what was said, but about not feeling authorized to make decisions without outside confirmation. The recurring phrase then becomes: \"I didn't know I could decide\" or \"I didn't know I was supposed to make this decision.\"
\nLow autonomy also shows up as reduced ownership. Tasks are carried out with little care and attention, as if the final result always depended on someone else.
\nPeople often tend to associate the ability to decide and take care of things with the role held within the organization. The assumption is that only the owner of the business is truly able to take responsibility and make decisions. In reality, that's not the case.
\nThere are business owners with little autonomy and, at the same time, interns who show a high degree of decision-making autonomy. Autonomy therefore doesn't depend on owning the business or on hierarchical level; it's a characteristic that can be present or absent regardless of role.
\nFaced with a problem of this kind, you need to ask a fundamental question: does team members' lack of autonomy depend on them or on whoever manages them?
\nThe answer proposed here is that the main cause of team members' low autonomy lies in the way the system is led. The problem therefore depends on business owners, managers and, more generally, on whoever plays the leadership role within the system.
\nBefore acting on people, then, you need to understand how the system encourages or hinders the development of autonomy, and to understand that, you need to clarify what autonomy is.
\nTo understand the problem, you first need to clarify the meaning of the word autonomy, because this concept is often confused with independence.
\nMaking this distinction isn't just about textbook knowledge: highlighting the difference between autonomy and independence helps you see exactly where the problem arises and why, most of the time, people are unaware that there is a lack of autonomy in the company.
\nIf people can do things on their own, does it automatically follow that they can also make decisions on their own?
\nThe answer to this question is crucial…
\nTo start understanding more, you need to begin with the meaning of words.
\nEtymologically, the term autonomy comes from the Greek autós (\"self\") and nómos (\"law,\" \"rule\").
\nAutonomy therefore means the ability to set your own rules, make decisions and govern yourself.
\nIn other words, it is the ability to make coherent, considered and reasoned decisions on an individual basis.
\nThat's why autonomy is above all about thinking, much more than doing.
\nA person can carry out a task perfectly without being autonomous. Autonomy, on the contrary, shows up in the ability to reason, evaluate and decide consciously within the boundaries assigned.
\nAutonomy and independence are not the same.
\nA person can be perfectly independent in carrying out a task and, at the same time, not be autonomous in their decisions.
\nAutonomy means being in control of your own decisions.
\nIndependence, on the other hand, is mainly about the ability to do something without the direct help of others.
\nYou can, for example, be independent in getting dressed but not autonomous: the choice of clothing can be driven by fashion, marketing, social expectations or other people's judgment. In this case the person apparently decides alone, but the decision is actually influenced by external factors.
\n
The question to ask then becomes:
\nDoes the decision really come from the person, or is someone else determining it?
\nEven a child can become independent in getting dressed without becoming autonomous. In the same way, a person can live an entire life as an independent individual without developing real autonomy.
\nIn today's world, full of information and possibilities, people believe they are autonomous because they can choose among many options.
\nBut is autonomy encouraged or hindered by the possibility of choosing and by the amount of information available?
\nMany studies have explored the topic, with findings that may be surprising as an answer to this question.
\nAre people generally becoming more autonomous or less?
\nDo school, technology and the world of work tend to encourage autonomy or hinder it?
\nResearch from recent decades suggests that more choices, more available information and greater use of technological tools do not automatically produce greater decision-making autonomy.
\nOn the contrary, under certain conditions, this abundance of options can make it harder to decide and fosters a growing dependence on external references (in other words, it generates heteronomy).
\nThe phenomenon of choice overload, studied by Iyengar and Lepper (2000)[1] and explored further by Schwartz (2004)[2], shows that a large number of alternatives tends to increase initial interest but reduces the likelihood of reaching a decision.
\nA later analysis showed that this effect emerges above all when the alternatives are numerous and hard to compare, when there are no clear criteria for choosing and when the decision requires a high cognitive effort.[3]
\nInformation overload produces similar effects. When the quantity, frequency or complexity of information exceeds the ability to process it, the time needed to decide increases, stress rises, it becomes harder to tell what is relevant, and there is a tendency to postpone the choice, with a decline in the quality of decisions (Eppler & Mengis, 2004)[4]; (Speier, Valacich & Vessey, 1999)[5].
\nResearch also shows that the increasingly frequent use of digital technologies and automated systems fosters the phenomenon of cognitive offloading, that is, the transfer of part of our cognitive activity to external tools (Risko & Gilbert, 2016)[6].
\nDelegating to technology the remembering of information, calculation, navigation or the comparison of alternatives can be advantageous, but the risk emerges when these tools systematically replace personal judgment.
\nStudies on automation bias show that people tend to more readily accept the indications provided by automated systems, reducing their critical checking of information (Skitka, Mosier & Burdick, 1999)[7]; (Goddard, Roudsari & Wyatt, 2012)[8].
\nThe use of smartphones, search engines, calendars, GPS navigators, software and artificial intelligence has led us to delegate many personal functions: for example, remembering phone numbers to the contact list; choosing the route to the navigator; remembering deadlines to the calendar; calculation to software; retrieving information to the search engine; comparing options or creating any kind of written content (from a formal email to a message in a group chat with friends) to artificial intelligence.
\nAs early as 1983, Bainbridge[9] described this phenomenon, observing that the more a system automates routine activities, the less people exercise the skills needed to deal with unexpected situations, precisely the ones in which those skills become indispensable.
\nIn education, too, assessment methods can affect autonomy. Research by Butler and Nisan (1986)[10] and Butler (1987)[11] shows that a strong emphasis on grades tends to shift attention from the learning process to the final result, reducing interest in understanding and engagement in the task.
\nSimilarly, Dowson and McInerney (2003)[12] observed how the goals students pursue deeply influence their motivation and the way they approach learning.
\nTaken together, these studies suggest that autonomy isn't lost suddenly, but can shrink gradually every time personal judgment is replaced by an excessive number of choices, information, external evaluations or tools that decide in the person's place.
\nExternal aids can be useful, but autonomy grows only when they continue to support, not replace, the ability to understand, evaluate and decide.
\nAs a whole, these studies describe mechanisms that narrow the decision-making room of those exposed to them: overload of options, excess information, reliance on automation. None of them measures a trend over time: the step from individual mechanisms to a trend in today's society is the interpretation offered here, not a finding of those studies.
\nBefore tackling a problem to solve it, you need to check that it actually affects you and understand whether it's an occasional situation or a chronic problem.
\nA chronic problem is one that occurs repeatedly over time, keeps showing up without ever really being solved, and whose causes have never been analyzed. A chronic problem tends to repeat itself because people try to solve it by acting on the effects each time, without asking what keeps generating the situation: not acting on the cause means the problem resurfaces again and again.
\nNext, you need to detect the problem by asking what signs and evidence show that it's present.
\nYou need to identify where the problem shows up and whom it affects.
\nIt's important to ask whether low autonomy concerns all team members or only some, whether it affects only the team or also involves managers and business owners.
\nIt's precisely the effects the problem produces that make its existence evident. Recognizing these effects means becoming aware that the problem is present so you can start to understand how it works.
\nThe main effects of low autonomy in team members are the following.
\nAfter identifying the problem and observing its effects, you can start thinking about the solution.
\nThe first step is to ask what the ideal condition to reach is.
\nThe most immediate answer often leads to a conclusion that seems logical but is actually incorrect: \"all team members must be autonomous.\"
\nThis, however, is not the ideal condition.
\nNot all team members need to have the same level of autonomy, and not all of them need to have maximum decision-making autonomy. The same principle applies to managers and to business owners themselves.
\nA system in which a single person makes all the decisions is dysfunctional.
\nBut a system in which everyone decides on everything is just as dysfunctional.
\nThe ideal condition is therefore different:
\n\"all team members who need to make decisions must be autonomous in making those decisions.\"
\nTo reach this condition, you need to start by building a written map of decisions.
\nYou need to define precisely who decides what, both within the company and in other organizational contexts, such as the family.
\nIf it isn't clear which decisions belong to each role, there will always be doubts and uncertainty. Uncertainty creates paralysis, and paralysis feeds dependence in decision-making.
\nThat's why it's essential to define the decision boundaries of each role.
\nWhen these boundaries don't exist, two extreme situations arise, both dysfunctional.
\nThe first is the infinite, that is, the belief that a person can decide anything.
\nThe second is the void, that is, the belief that they can decide absolutely nothing.
\nBoth conditions prevent autonomy from developing.
\nTo understand whether a manager or a parent is really working on developing autonomy, it's enough to ask a very simple question:
\nWhat does this person decide on their own?
\nIf there is no precise (and therefore written) answer to this question, it means you aren't really working on autonomy, because the decision boundaries haven't been defined.
\nOnce the result to reach in order to solve the lack of autonomy has been defined, you need to start understanding the problem you've detected, beginning with what generated it and keeps it recurring in your system: the ideas it rests on.
\n![\"Diagram](\"/article-assets/mancanza-di-autonomia-nei-collaboratori/mancanza-di-autonomia-nei-collaboratori-livello-corretto-autonomia.jpg\")
To understand how to develop autonomy, you need to start from a very widespread idea about the relationship between autonomy and responsibility.
\nThe most common, but wrong, idea on this point is that autonomy comes from responsibility.
\nAccording to this belief, you first assign a responsibility and, as a consequence, the person becomes autonomous.
\nIn reality, this mechanism doesn't work.
\nGiving responsibility to a person who doesn't yet have room to make decisions doesn't produce autonomy; it only increases the perceived burden. If every decision still depends on someone else's approval, the responsibility remains merely formal.
\nThat's why assigning responsibility without changing the way decisions are made doesn't solve the lack of autonomy.
\nThe correct idea is exactly the opposite: responsibility arises when there is autonomy.
\nA person feels truly responsible when they have the possibility to decide.
\nThat's why you need to work on gradually expanding decision boundaries.
\nThe goal isn't to go straight from a total lack of autonomy to complete autonomy. There is an intermediate phase, called semi-autonomy, in which the person starts making decisions but continues to check with the manager before making them final.
\nThe decision is therefore formulated autonomously but submitted for review.
\nIn this phase there are more moments of monitoring and discussion, which help you understand how to improve the quality of decisions.
\nOver time, as decision-making ability grows, checking in advance becomes less and less necessary, until it gives way to full autonomy.
\nFor this path to be effective, decision boundaries must be extremely clear.
\nHow autonomy works and, conversely, how heteronomy works are the key points to understand in order to act on the dynamics that generate, and keep sustaining, the problem of lack of autonomy in team members.
\nYou need to ask three questions that help explain the mechanism by which autonomy is created.
\n1 - What feeds heteronomy?
\nWhen autonomy is lacking, heteronomy develops: the tendency to make decisions based on other people's judgment, approval or instructions rather than on your own assessment.
\nSome dynamics feed this mechanism, and they're worth knowing in order to prevent or resolve it:
\nA simple but effective example is the situation of a child who shows a drawing to their father and asks:
\n\"Do you like my drawing?\"
\nIf the answer is simply \"Yes\" or \"No,\" the judgment is placed outside the person (the child, in this case).
\nThis reinforces the idea that the value of a decision always depends on other people's evaluation.
\nAn autonomy trigger, instead, brings the judgment back inside the person, by answering with a question like:
\n\"Do you like it?\" or \"What do you think?\"
\nThe goal is to gradually shift the center of evaluation from the outside to the inside.
\n2 - What feeds autonomy?
\nAutonomy grows when people are given support to learn how to manage their own decisions.
\nHere too, the transition isn't immediate.
\nYou don't go from a total absence of autonomy to complete decision-making autonomy.
\nThe path necessarily goes through a phase of semi-autonomy.
\nThe person makes a decision but, before proceeding, checks with the manager.
\nThe discussion isn't meant to replace the decision, but to improve the decision-making process.
\nThrough frequent monitoring and targeted feedback, the quality of decisions gradually improves, until constant control becomes unnecessary.
\nAn important role is also played by delegation that includes decisions.
\nDelegating doesn't just mean assigning a task to carry out, but also granting the possibility to choose how to approach it within clearly defined boundaries.
\nAutonomy triggers also contribute to this process.
\nWhen a team member hands in a project and asks:
\n\"Is this OK?\", the most useful response isn't simply to give a positive or negative judgment.
\nIt's more useful to bring the evaluation back to the person by asking:
\n\"What do you think?\" or \"What areas for improvement do you see?\"
\nThis way, personal judgment gradually becomes more important than other people's judgment, and the ability to evaluate your own work independently grows stronger.
\n![\"Comparison](\"/article-assets/mancanza-di-autonomia-nei-collaboratori/mancanza-di-autonomia-nei-collaboratori-stimolatori-di-autonomia.jpg\")
3 - What is the process that generates the problem?
\nTo develop autonomy, three conditions must be present.
\nThe first is being able to identify decision boundaries, that is, knowing clearly what falls within your own decision-making responsibility.
\nThe second concerns the intention to exercise autonomy: the person must perceive that they have the prerogative to decide and feel authorized to do so.
\nThe third is having a method for deciding, that is, developing the ability to actually exercise decision-making autonomy.
\nWhen even one of these elements is missing, the process breaks down and the system tends to fall back into heteronomy and, therefore, to generate the problem of lack of autonomy.
\nThe main causes of lack of autonomy, then, are three:
\nTo solve the problem in a lasting way, solutions must act directly on the causes that feed it.
\nThree concrete actions can spread autonomy among team members by eliminating the negative effects of the problem:
\n1. Clarify the prerogative to autonomy
\nThe first step is to make clear that each person has a specific decision-making prerogative (right).
\nThe expectations for the role, the duties and above all the boundaries within which the person is called on to make decisions must be made explicit.
\nAutonomy doesn't come from improvisation, but from clarity.
\nEvery role, even at the most operational level, has decision-making powers to exercise: clarifying them means making every element of the system aware and accountable.
\n2. Define decision boundaries in writing
\nYou need to establish precisely what a team member decides with full autonomy and what they decide under semi-autonomy.
\nIn the same way, it must be made clear what falls outside their decision-making responsibility.
\nWhat a person decides and what they don't decide must be defined explicitly and, where possible, formalized in writing.
\nClear boundaries are the precondition for developing autonomy.
\n3. Minimize every form of approval
\nExternal approval must not replace personal approval.
\nBefore getting feedback from the manager, the person should be able to express their own judgment on the work done.
\nRecognition from the manager can be positive reinforcement, a \"pat on the back,\" but it must not become the necessary condition for evaluating your own work.
\nThe same principle also applies to career paths.
\nThe rules for earning a promotion or moving up to a higher professional level must be defined from the start.
\nGrowth shouldn't depend on the boss's discretionary approval or on the need to be told \"well done,\" but on meeting clearly established criteria and results.
\nWhen a person constantly needs others' approval to confirm the value of their decisions, it means the process of developing autonomy isn't yet complete.
\nLack of autonomy, then, doesn't depend simply on people's willingness or abilities, but on the way decision-making processes are built within an organization.
\nWhen decision boundaries aren't clear, responsibilities are assigned without leaving room for decisions, and constantly seeking approval becomes the norm, the system ends up feeding heteronomy instead of developing autonomy.
\nTackling this problem therefore means working on the causes that generate it: defining precisely who decides what, gradually expanding the room for decisions and creating conditions that allow people to evaluate and choose consciously.
\n[1] Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (2000). When Choice Is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 995–1006.
\n[2] Schwartz, B. (2004). The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. HarperCollins.
\n[3] Scheibehenne, B., Greifeneder, R., & Todd, P. M. (2010). Can There Ever Be Too Many Options? A Meta-Analytic Review of Choice Overload. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(3), 409–425.
\n[4] Eppler, M. J., & Mengis, J. (2004). The Concept of Information Overload: A Review of Literature from Organization Science, Accounting, Marketing, MIS, and Related Disciplines. The Information Society, 20(5), 325–344.
\n[5] Speier, C., Valacich, J. S., & Vessey, I. (1999). The Influence of Task Interruption on Individual Decision Making: An Information Overload Perspective. Decision Sciences, 30(2), 337–360.
\n[6] Risko, E. F., & Gilbert, S. J. (2016). Cognitive Offloading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(9), 676–688.
\n[7] Skitka, L. J., Mosier, K. L., & Burdick, M. (1999). Does Automation Bias Decision-Making? International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 51(5), 991–1006.
\n[8] Goddard, K., Roudsari, A., & Wyatt, J. C. (2012). Automation Bias: A Systematic Review of Frequency, Effect Mediators, and Mitigators. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 19(1), 121–127.
\n[9] Bainbridge, L. (1983). Ironies of Automation. Automatica, 19(6), 775–779. DOI: 10.1016/0005-1098(83)90046-8.
\n[10] Butler, R., & Nisan, M. (1986). Effects of No Feedback, Task-Related Comments, and Grades on Intrinsic Motivation and Performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 78(3), 210–216.
\n[11] Butler, R. (1987). Task-Involving and Ego-Involving Properties of Evaluation: Effects of Different Feedback Conditions on Motivational Perceptions, Interest, and Performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79(4), 474–482.
\n[12] Dowson, M., & McInerney, D. M. (2003). What Do Students Say About Their Motivational Goals? Towards a More Complex and Dynamic Perspective on Student Motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 28(1), 91–113.
","headings":[{"level":2,"text":"The problem: low autonomy in team members","id":"the-problem-low-autonomy-in-team-members"},{"level":3,"text":"What autonomy really means and why it isn't the same as independence","id":"what-autonomy-really-means-and-why-it-isnt-the-same-as-independence"},{"level":3,"text":"What research says about autonomy in today's systems","id":"what-research-says-about-autonomy-in-todays-systems"},{"level":2,"text":"How to recognize a real lack of autonomy in team members","id":"how-to-recognize-a-real-lack-of-autonomy-in-team-members"},{"level":2,"text":"What is the right level of autonomy to reach within a system","id":"what-is-the-right-level-of-autonomy-to-reach-within-a-system"},{"level":2,"text":"The dynamics that reduce or develop decision-making autonomy","id":"the-dynamics-that-reduce-or-develop-decision-making-autonomy"},{"level":2,"text":"The causes that keep team members in a state of heteronomy","id":"the-causes-that-keep-team-members-in-a-state-of-heteronomy"},{"level":2,"text":"Three concrete actions to increase team members' autonomy","id":"three-concrete-actions-to-increase-team-members-autonomy"},{"level":2,"text":"Sources and references","id":"sources-and-references"}],"tldr":"","tldrItems":null}