The Two Types of Decisions Every Leader Makes
And how to make them well
Experience Level: Early Management
Article 1 of 6 in the Decision-Making Excellence Learning Path
Reading time: 7 minutes
It’s 8:15 AM on a Tuesday morning. You’re managing the morning shift when your phone buzzes: one of your best associates just called out sick, and you need to figure out coverage for a critical process area. Before you can even process that, your team lead walks up asking if she should hold back a shipment because of a potential quality issue. Your boss texts asking for an update on yesterday’s safety incident.
You stare at your coffee—still full, already cold—and realize you haven’t had a single uninterrupted moment since you walked through the door. Your stomach tightens. These all feel urgent. They all feel important. And you have no idea which one deserves your attention first or how much time you should spend thinking about each one.
If you’re feeling paralyzed by decisions right now, you’re not alone. Every new manager I’ve trained—including myself—goes through this phase where every choice feels weighted with career-ending consequences. You lie awake at night replaying decisions, wondering if you made the right call. You second-guess yourself constantly. You ask your boss for approval on things you’re pretty sure you could decide yourself, but what if you’re wrong?
Here’s what I learned the hard way: you’re probably overthinking 90% of your decisions while underthinking the 10% that actually matter. And that misalignment is exhausting you, slowing down your operation, and preventing you from building the confidence you need to lead effectively.
If You’re Reading This Feeling Overwhelmed...
Take a breath. The fact that you care this much about making good decisions means you’re already on the right path. The framework you’re about to learn won’t eliminate uncertainty—that’s not the goal. It will help you understand which decisions deserve 5 minutes of your attention and which deserve 5 hours. That distinction alone will transform how you lead.
The Conversation That Changed Everything
Six months into my first management role, I was drowning in decisions. I’d spend 20 minutes agonizing over which associate to move between departments—a decision I could reverse in an hour—while hastily approving workflow modifications that created bottlenecks for weeks.
My boss noticed the pattern during one of our weekly check-ins.
“Devin,” he said, watching me deliberate over yet another routine staffing decision, “you’re spending time like you have unlimited amounts of it. Some decisions deserve five minutes of your attention. Others deserve five hours. The trick is knowing which is which.”
He then walked me through a framework that would completely transform my approach to leadership. It wasn’t complicated. It was just a simple way of categorizing decisions that immediately made everything clearer.
That conversation happened over a decade ago. Since then, as I progressed from managing a single area to overseeing multiple departments and eventually training managers across Amazon’s network, I’ve seen the same pattern everywhere: the leaders who thrive have learned to match their decision-making process to the decision’s actual significance.
This isn’t about making faster decisions. It’s about making appropriate decisions at appropriate speeds—moving quickly when speed serves the operation, and slowing down when careful consideration prevents costly mistakes.
The Two Fundamental Types of Decisions
The framework is built on a simple distinction. Some decisions are like walking through one-way doors—hard to reverse and consequential. Others are like walking through two-way doors—if you don’t like what you find on the other side, you can simply walk back through.
Jeff Bezos formalized this in a letter to Amazon shareholders:
Type 1 Decisions: One-Way Doors
Type 1 decisions are consequential and nearly irreversible. Once you make them, you can’t easily go back. These decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation.
For new managers, Type 1 decisions might include:
Implementing a new safety protocol that changes how your team works
Recommending someone for promotion or a key assignment
Changing your team’s core schedule or shift patterns
Committing to a major process change that affects multiple shifts
Taking on a high-visibility project that will define your reputation
Notice something about these examples: they’re not necessarily huge organizational decisions. They’re choices many new managers actually have the powere to make, but they have lasting consequences.
Type 2 Decisions: Two-Way Doors
Type 2 decisions are changeable and reversible. If you’ve made a suboptimal Type 2 decision, you don’t have to live with the consequences for long. You can reopen the door and go back through. These decisions can and should be made quickly.
For new managers, Type 2 decisions include:
Pulling someone from one area to cover a gap (you can move them back in an hour)
Adjusting break schedules to align with workflow
Choosing which issue to tackle first when three things need attention
Assigning today’s tasks to your team
Deciding whether to stay late to finish a shipment or let it roll to tomorrow
Responding to a quality exception using established guidelines
The critical insight: the vast majority of your daily decisions—often 90% or more—are Type 2. They’re important, but they’re not permanent. They can be refined through iteration and adjusted based on results.
The Hidden Truth About Indecision
Here’s something new managers aren’t told often enough: making a decision, even a slightly suboptimal one, is almost always better than making no decision at all.
Indecision has a cost that’s easy to overlook. While you’re deliberating on a Type 2 decision:
Your team is waiting for direction, unable to move forward
The problem you’re trying to solve is often getting worse
You’re burning mental energy you’ll need for decisions that actually matter
You’re modeling hesitation instead of confidence
Your operation is losing momentum
Remember that conversation I had with my boss? A few years later I had the opportunity to pass the lesson on to another department manager during their first peak season. Equipment had failed in two areas simultaneously. They froze, trying to determine the “perfect” response—which area to prioritize, which repair to attempt first, whether to call for additional support. Meanwhile, 30 associates stood around waiting for direction.
After a couple minutes I stepped in: “Pick one. Fix pack first. Move three people to the other area temporarily. We’ll adjust in 20 minutes if we need to.”
Was it the optimal solution? Maybe not. But it was a solution, and it got everyone moving. Within 10 minutes we had identified a better approach and adjusted. The key was that we were learning from real results, not theoretical analysis.
For Type 2 decisions, action creates information. Standing still creates nothing but anxiety and delay.
This doesn’t mean being reckless with Type 1 decisions—those still deserve careful consideration. But for the 90% of your decisions that are reversible, you’re better off making your best judgment with available information and adjusting based on what you learn than trying to achieve perfect certainty before acting.
Why This Distinction Transforms Leadership
Understanding these two decision types changes three fundamental aspects of how you operate:
1. Speed Becomes Strategic
When you recognize that most operational decisions are reversible, you can move at the speed your operation demands. The warehouse floor doesn’t stop for deliberation.
Type 2 decisions don’t require perfect information—they require sufficient information and sound judgment. Make the best decision with available data, implement it, observe the results, and adjust if needed. This approach often produces better outcomes than prolonged analysis because you’re testing reality rather than theorizing about it.
2. Energy Investment Aligns With Impact
Your mental energy and time are finite resources. When you spend 20 minutes on a reversible staffing move, you’re draining capacity you’ll need for decisions that actually have lasting consequences.
By quickly categorizing decisions as Type 1 or Type 2, you allocate your cognitive resources appropriately. Routine decisions get streamlined processes. High-stakes decisions get the deep analysis they deserve.
3. Confidence Replaces Anxiety
Much of the anxiety around decision-making comes from uncertainty about whether you’re being appropriately careful. When you understand that a decision is reversible—that you can adjust course based on results—the psychological burden lightens considerably.
You won’t eliminate uncertainty. But you’ll stop treating every decision like it’s permanent when most of them aren’t.
The Learning Path Ahead
This article is your entry point to the Decision-Making Excellence learning path—a structured sequence designed to build your decision-making capabilities systematically.
Here’s what’s coming:
Article 2: Decision Making for New Warehouse Managers: Part 1 - Everyday Decisions — Learn practical frameworks for handling the high volume of Type 2 decisions that fill your day. We’ll cover the “Hat, Haircut, Tattoo” model, the four-question test, and how to break the approval-seeking cycle that slows down your operation.
Article 3: The 2-Minute Decision Matrix for Floor Supervisors — Get a visual tool specifically designed for the time-compressed environment of the production floor. This 2x2 matrix helps you categorize and act on operational decisions in real-time.
Article 4: Decision Making for New Warehouse Managers: Part 2 - High-Impact Decisions — Develop systematic approaches for Type 1 decisions using the SCALA framework. Learn when to slow down and how to make consequential choices with appropriate rigor and stakeholder involvement.
Article 5: Decision Making for New Warehouse Managers: Part 3 - Building a Decision-Making Culture — Move beyond personal capability to organizational strength. Create systems where good decisions happen at every level, not just when you’re present.
Each article builds on the previous one, progressing from understanding decision types → mastering everyday choices → handling high-impact decisions → building decision-making capability throughout your team.
What Changes When You Master This
By the end of this learning path, your days will feel fundamentally different. You’ll make 10-15 operational decisions before lunch without mental exhaustion. You’ll feel calm saying “I need 24 hours to think about this” when something’s truly consequential. You’ll stop second-guessing reversible choices once they’re implemented. And you’ll build trust with your boss because you’re not escalating routine decisions that are clearly within your authority.
The framework won’t eliminate uncertainty—that’s not the goal. But it will help you stop treating every decision like it’s permanent when most of them aren’t. And that shift creates the mental space and confidence you need to handle the decisions that actually do matter.
From Theory to Action
Ready to start applying this framework? Here are three practical steps to take this week:
1. Track your decisions for three days. Keep a simple log—it can be just a list in your phone or notebook. Write down every significant decision you make. At the end of each day, mark each one as Type 1 or Type 2. You’ll likely discover that 85-95% are Type 2—reversible decisions that don’t require extensive deliberation. This awareness alone begins shifting your approach.
2. Have the “decision authority” conversation with your manager. Schedule 15 minutes specifically to discuss decision boundaries. Ask: “Which decisions should I make independently and inform you about? Which require consultation?” Most managers appreciate this initiative and will give you clearer guidance—and often more autonomy—than you expect.
3. Practice rapid Type 2 decision-making. For the next week, when you identify a Type 2 decision, commit to making it within 5 minutes. If it’s a staffing move, break schedule adjustment, or task reprioritization—make the call quickly, communicate it clearly, and monitor results. You’ll build confidence and operational speed simultaneously.
The next article in this path will give you the detailed frameworks you need to master everyday Type 2 decisions. But you can start building the fundamental skill right now: simply categorizing your decisions as one-way or two-way doors.
The journey from decision-making uncertainty to decision-making confidence begins with this simple distinction: some doors swing both ways, and some don’t. Knowing which you’re walking through changes everything.
Most of the stress you’re feeling right now comes from treating every door like it only opens one way. Once you understand that you can walk back through most of them, you’ll find yourself moving faster, sleeping better, and building the confidence that defines effective leadership.
This is article 1 of 6 in the Decision-Making Excellence Learning Path.
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Prerequisite foundation: This path builds on communication and self-awareness foundations covered in the First 90 Days Learning Path. If you’re brand new to management, consider starting there first.