Coach The Bench

Give the General Manager Real Decision Rights

A general manager without decision rights is a shift lead with a bigger business card. The fix is a single page, four sections, and a signature. Here is what goes on the page.

Kiyong (Eric) Lee·Operations Executive·August 2026·10 min read

The short version

Most underperforming general managers do not lack skill. They lack written-down decision rights inside four categories: money, people, time, and product.
The document is one page. Each section names three to five specific decisions with a specific ceiling and a specific escalation trigger.
If the GM cannot recite their money ceiling from memory in an elevator, they do not actually have it.
Overstepping is usually a signal the ceiling is set too low for the unit, not that the GM needs coaching.
Empowerment is a feeling. Decision rights are a list. You can audit a list.

The first year I ran a region for Hana Group, I was on the phone at 9:47 pm on a Saturday with a general manager at a Sam's Club unit outside Dallas. A guest had complained about a cold sushi order that had already been eaten. He wanted to comp the meal. Total ticket, forty two dollars. He was calling me to ask if he could.

I said yes. I hung up. I looked at my wife and I said out loud, "I have twenty one of these people and I am the bottleneck." That was the week I sat down and wrote the first version of what I now call the four decision rights. It is a one-page document, and it is the single highest leverage tool I have ever installed on a bench of general managers.

This piece is about what goes on that page, why almost every underperforming general manager I have ever met is actually a decision rights problem in disguise, and how to write the fence so specifically that a GM can protect the P&L without picking up the phone.

Why decision rights get quietly stripped

Nobody strips a general manager's decision rights on purpose. It happens the same way every time. Something goes wrong at one unit. A comp was given that should not have been given. A hire was made that did not work out. A schedule change was made without warning a supplier. Somebody upstairs writes a new rule. All comps over twenty dollars now require district approval. All hires now require a second interview. All schedule changes now require a form.

Each new rule was a reasonable response to a real problem. In aggregate they are a slow amputation of the general manager's ability to run their business. Over three years the GM ends up with the title, the responsibility, the P&L, and none of the meaningful authority. And then everybody wonders why the GM stopped bringing you real problems.

The GM did not stop bringing you problems because they got lazy. They stopped bringing you problems because they figured out, correctly, that every problem they bring you turns into a new rule that takes something else away from them. Silence is the rational response to that game.

Accountability without authority is not leadership development. It is a slow trap. The general manager who is smart enough to spot the trap is also smart enough to leave.

The four decision rights, in one page

Everything a general manager needs to do their job lives in one of four categories. Money, people, time, product. When I take over a bench, this is the first artifact I write, and I write it with the general manager sitting across the table, not for them.

Fig. 1 · The four decision rights. One page. Signed by both.

Money

The most common failure mode. Every GM should have a per-incident dollar ceiling for three things: a guest recovery comp, a small purchase, and an emergency repair. Working numbers I use for a full-service restaurant doing $4M to $8M in revenue: comps up to $75 per incident, small purchases up to $250 per event, emergency repair up to $500 per event. Each of those sits under a monthly aggregate cap that scales with the unit. Above the ceiling, one phone call to a named person, not a form.

The specific number matters less than the fact that there is one and the GM knows it. When I asked general managers at Zareen's in the first week what their comp ceiling was, three of the five could not tell me. Two had different numbers than the finance controller thought they had. One had never been given a ceiling at all and had been quietly making it up for two years, which meant the finance team had been quietly overriding him for two years, which meant neither of them trusted the other.

People

The GM needs to know exactly which roles they can hire without a second signature, exactly which coaching conversations they own, and exactly what the escalation is before termination. In practice this looks like: line and prep hires the GM makes alone, shift supervisors and above require the area director's second interview, coaching and verbal warnings the GM handles, written warnings the GM writes and shares with HR before delivery, termination requires one phone call.

Notice that "requires one phone call" is not the same as "requires approval." The GM makes the call. If they still want to move forward after the call, they move forward. The call is there to catch the one case in twenty where a second set of eyes changes the answer. It is not there to override the GM.

Time

The GM owns the schedule. Full stop. This is the right that gets stripped fastest and rebuilt slowest, because it is the right that scales into the biggest cost line on the P&L. If a district manager is approving PTO for a bartender at 11 pm from a phone in an airport, the GM does not have time rights, and the schedule is going to keep drifting out of shape.

The working boundary: the GM owns the schedule, approves PTO within a monthly cap of hours off, and approves all shift trades. Anything above the cap or anything that changes the overtime budget triggers an escalation. Everything else is the GM's call, and the GM's number.

Product

The one people forget. The GM needs the right to flex the product inside the brand fence. That means the 86 list for a shift is their call. Prep count adjustments for expected covers are their call. Layout changes on the floor for a private event are their call. What is not their call is anything that changes brand: recipe, spec, plating, pricing.

Write the fence, then leave them alone inside it. The GM who has product rights inside the fence will protect the brand harder than the GM who has been made to ask permission for everything, because the first one owns it and the second one is renting.

A conversation from a Bay Area kitchen

Second month at Zareen's, walking the Palo Alto kitchen at the tail end of a Friday dinner. The GM, call her Priya, was on the phone in the office. When she came out I asked what the call was. She said she had been calling the finance controller because a repeat guest had gotten a wrong protein and she wanted to comp the entree. Fifty two dollars.

I asked her what she thought the right call was. She said comp the entree, send a hand-written note the next day, put the guest's name in the reservation system so the next visit gets a small treatment. I asked her why she called. She said because she was told last year that comps over twenty dollars required a call.

We fixed it that night, standing at the pass. New ceiling: seventy five dollars per incident, six hundred dollars a month aggregate. Written on the back of a check pad, both of us signed it, I took a photo and sent it to the controller. The next week we did the same for the other four GMs, all four categories, one page each. In the following ninety days I got 62 percent fewer approval calls, and comp spend as a percent of sales actually went down 0.4 points. The GMs were being more careful with their money than I had been with theirs.

You do not empower a general manager by trusting them harder. You empower them by writing down what they can decide, signing it, and getting out of their way.

How to write the page in an afternoon

The document is not complicated. What is hard is being specific. Vague decision rights are worse than no decision rights, because they leave the GM guessing and the guess is always conservative. Here is the sequence I use:

Sit down with the GM. Not a Zoom. In the office at their unit, coffee in hand, one hour blocked. This document is a partnership. If you write it alone and hand it to them, they will not internalize it.
Walk the four categories in order. Money, people, time, product. For each one, ask them what they currently think they can decide, then negotiate the specifics.
Write the ceiling as a number, not a range. "Up to $75" not "modest amounts." "Line and prep" not "lower-level roles." Numbers and named roles only.
Write the escalation as a person, not a process. "Call the area director" not "escalate per policy." Name the person by name. Give the phone number. This matters at 10 pm on a Saturday.
Both of you sign it, both of you keep a copy. The GM keeps theirs in the operating binder. You keep yours in a shared drive. Once a year on the GM's anniversary date, you review it together and adjust.

When to move the fence

A well-written decision rights page is not static. It gets bigger over time as the GM demonstrates judgment, and it does not get smaller unless something serious happens. The signal I watch for is simple. If the GM has stopped hitting the ceiling and stopped escalating for one full quarter, the ceiling is ready to move. If the GM is bumping the ceiling twice a month, the ceiling is set below the reality of the unit and it is my mistake, not theirs.

The mistake I made for years was moving the fence based on how the GM felt about themselves. Confidence is not the signal. The signal is a quarter of clean data. The GM's actual pattern of decisions tells you where they are. Their self-assessment does not.

What this actually buys you

Two things, both large. First, the general manager stops being a bottleneck for their own unit. Every decision they were routing to you happens faster and, in most cases, with better information. The GM is standing at the pass. You are on a call in another state. They are going to make a better call if you get out of their way.

Second, and this is the one that sneaks up on you, the general manager starts telling you the truth again. Once they know their fence, they stop hiding the things that live inside the fence, because the fence is theirs. They only bring you what actually needs bringing. The signal-to-noise ratio on the calls you do get goes up 4x.

The whole idea of coaching a bench of general managers starts here. Everything else, the weekly review, the succession plan, the promotion pipeline, is built on top of one page that says out loud what the GM is allowed to decide. Skip that page, and every leadership investment you make sits on sand.

Write the page. Sign the page. Get out of the way.

Rebuilding a bench right now?

I work with a small number of multi-unit operators each year on general manager development, decision rights, and regional operating rhythm. If you are staring at a bench of GMs who are underperforming, and you already suspect it is not their skill, I would trade notes.

Get in touch

Questions people ask

What are decision rights for a general manager?

Decision rights are the specific, named authorities a general manager holds to make a decision without asking permission. In restaurant and multi-unit operations they fall into four groups: money (comps, purchases, small repair), people (hiring, coaching, discipline within limits), time (scheduling, PTO, shift trades), and product (86 list, spec adjustments, cover count changes within brand). If a GM cannot say their ceiling from memory in each group, they do not actually have the right, no matter what the org chart says.

Why do general managers underperform even when they have title?

Almost always because they have been given responsibility for the P&L without the decision rights to protect it. They get judged on labor cost, food cost, and guest experience, but every meaningful decision routes back to a district or regional manager for approval. That gap between accountability and authority is what burns general managers out and what teaches them to stop bringing you real problems.

How do you write down decision rights?

One page. Four sections: money, people, time, product. Each section lists three to five decisions with a specific dollar or count ceiling, the escalation trigger, and who they call when they hit it. The GM signs the page. The area director signs the page. It lives in the GM's operating binder and gets reviewed once a year. If it does not fit on one page, you are writing policy, not decision rights.

How much money should a general manager be able to approve?

Enough that they can solve a shift-level problem without a phone call. In my experience the working numbers for a restaurant GM are: comps up to $75 per incident, small purchases up to $250 per event, emergency repair up to $500 per event, all with a monthly aggregate cap that fits the unit size. If your GM cannot approve a $60 comp for a guest whose steak came out wrong, you have handed them a P&L they cannot protect.

How do you know when to give a general manager more decision rights?

When they stop using the rights they already have. A GM who is escalating fewer decisions, staying within ceilings, and reporting outcomes without being asked is ready to expand. A GM who is bumping the ceilings constantly is telling you the ceilings are wrong, not that they need more authority. Watch the pattern for a full quarter before you move the fence.

What is the difference between decision rights and empowerment?

Empowerment is a feeling. Decision rights are a written list of specific actions with a specific ceiling. You cannot audit empowerment. You can audit decision rights. Every operations job I have taken over that was described as an empowerment problem turned out to be a written-down decision rights problem, and the fix was a single page of specifics, not a culture workshop.

What happens when a general manager oversteps their decision rights?

You have a two-minute conversation, not a two-page write-up. Name the specific decision, name the specific ceiling they crossed, ask what they would do differently, and move on. Overstepping is almost always a sign that the ceiling was set too low for the reality of the unit. First look at whether the ceiling needs to move before you look at whether the GM needs coaching.