4-The 4 Ps of Decision-Making: How Leaders Shape Success

Understanding the True Impact of Every Decision You Make

Introduction: Decisions Are More Than Just Choices

If you’ve ever seen a project or initiative unravel, it’s rarely because of one big, obvious mistake. More often, it’s the result of a series of decisions—each seemingly small, but cumulatively significant.

Leadership isn’t just about what decisions you make—it’s about understanding what those decisions create, prevent, and enable over time.

This is where the 4 Ps of Decision-Making come in—a way to assess decisions not just for their immediate impact, but for how they shape momentum, culture, and long-term outcomes.

But let’s be real: Decision-making at a senior level is rarely straightforward. Leaders face competing priorities, imperfect data, and the challenge of balancing urgency with long-term impact.

So how do the best leaders make decisions without getting trapped in over-analysis, bureaucracy, or reactivity?

It starts with understanding not just what a decision does—but what it signals, influences, and sets in motion.

The 4 Ps of Decision-Making: A Leadership Lens

Every leadership decision does four things:

Permits → It allows certain actions, behaviors, or precedents.
Prevents → It blocks or limits certain possibilities.
Provides → It introduces something new—resources, structure, clarity.
Promotes → It reinforces values, priorities, or expectations.

Many leaders make decisions focused on the immediate problem—without considering the second- and third-order effects. But when a leader steps back and evaluates a decision through these four lenses, they can see:

What this decision truly sets in motion (intentionally or not).
Whether it aligns with larger strategic goals—or just solves an immediate problem.
How people inside (and outside) the organization will interpret it.

Now, let’s break these down in real-world leadership scenarios.

1 - PERMITS: What Does This Decision Allow—Intentionally or Unintentionally?

Every leadership decision grants permission—explicitly or implicitly. Sometimes this is deliberate (“We are now allowing remote work”). Other times, it happens by accident (“We didn’t push back on that request, so now everyone assumes it’s fine”).

🔹 Example: The Case of “Unintended Permission”

Imagine a senior leader approves a budget exception for one department. It seems like a one-time accommodation. But what happens next?

Other teams see this and assume exceptions are now possible.
The finance team is caught off guard—was this an exception or a policy shift?
Future decisions are now harder—because the precedent has already been set.

🚦 Leadership Insight: Leaders don’t just make decisions—they create pathways. Every approval, policy, or new initiative subtly signals to the organization what is acceptable moving forward.

2 - PREVENTS: What Does This Decision Block or Close Off?

While some decisions open doors, others close them—whether intentionally or as a side effect.

Not all prevention is bad—sometimes it’s necessary to eliminate distractions, clarify priorities, or stop destructive behaviors. But leaders often focus so much on what a decision enables that they overlook what it removes.

🔹 Example: The “Innovation Bottleneck”

A leadership team implements stricter approval processes for new projects to control costs and accountability. Sounds responsible, right? But an unintended consequence emerges:

Employees stop proposing new ideas—because the process feels too slow.
Risk-taking decreases, and innovation stagnates.
The company gains more control—but at the cost of agility.

🚦 Leadership Insight: Decision-making isn’t just about saying “yes” to the right things—it’s about recognizing what you’re accidentally shutting down in the process.

3 - PROVIDES: What Does This Decision Introduce?

Beyond just solving a problem, every decision provides something new—whether it’s resources, clarity, structure, or expectations.

🔹 Example: The “Clarity Effect”

A CEO notices that teams keep asking the same questions about priorities. Instead of just addressing it in meetings, they implement an accessible, structured and transparent roadmap that clarifies:

✔ What’s important now vs. what’s coming next.

✔ What decisions have already been made vs. where input is still needed.

✔ How success will be measured.

The result? Decision fatigue drops, teams move with more confidence, and unnecessary meetings disappear.

🚦 Leadership Insight: Sometimes, the most valuable thing a leader can provide isn’t more resources or tools—it’s clarity.

4 - PROMOTES: What Does This Decision Reinforce?

Every decision a leader makes reinforces priorities—intentionally or not.

🔹 Example: The “Unintended Cultural Shift”

A leadership team prioritizes speed over process, constantly rewarding fast execution and finish-line drama. Over time, employees start skipping quality control steps to keep up. Suddenly, customer complaints rise—but the behavior was unintentionally promoted by leadership’s priorities.

🚦 Leadership Insight: People don’t just listen to what leaders say—they watch what leaders reward, ignore, and tolerate.

Leadership Reflections

Permit:

What have I implicitly permitted through past decisions—without realizing it?
Have I ever allowed a “one-time exception” that turned into a pattern?
How clear am I when setting boundaries on what a decision does not mean?

Prevent:

Have I recently made a decision that unintentionally blocked progress?
Are there areas where risk-avoidance has limited innovation?
What trade-offs am I making—intentionally or not—when I choose structure over speed?

Provide:

Have I provided enough clarity for my teams to act decisively?
Are we giving teams just tools and policies—or real strategic direction?
Is my leadership providing consistency and stability, or are we always reacting?

Promote:

Does my decision-making consistently reinforce our core values and priorities?
Are we promoting long-term thinking—or just reacting to the next urgency?
Have we unintentionally promoted behaviors that don’t align with our strategy?

Final Thought: Decisions as Strategic Multipliers

The best leaders don’t just make decisions—they shape the conditions for success through decision-making.

Next time you make a leadership decision, step back and ask:

What are we truly permitting, preventing, providing, and promoting with this choice?

Because in leadership, the decisions you make today determine the reality you lead tomorrow.

This post is part of Maypop Grove’s Leadership Evolution Series—a collection of in-depth reflections on leadership, influence, and strategy. Designed for leaders navigating complexity, this series explores how to drive change, build resilient teams, and lead with confidence.

Learn more at maypopgrove.com or reach out to grow@maypopgrove.com.