Debbie Lawrence

Debbie Lawrence Leadership coach + business strategist helping women lead for results with clarity, standards & zero guilt.

Your lid is dictating who stays and who goes.That's the headline of today's issue of The Permission Slip.I wrote it beca...
06/24/2026

Your lid is dictating who stays and who goes.

That's the headline of today's issue of The Permission Slip.

I wrote it because of a phone call I received early in my career from a colleague who was leaving a job he loved, not because of the company, but because of the ceiling. What I didn't understand at the time was that he wasn't calculating disloyalty. He was calculating ceiling.

Today's issue names the pattern clearly: your leadership capacity is the ceiling for everyone below you. Raising it is a daily, deliberate practice.

Read it: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/06/23/your-lid-is-dictating-who-stays-and-who-goes/
Listen to it: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6g99XSwPEexqqDOeOgQMY7

Not yet a subscriber? www.debbielawrence.ca/signup

There's a woman in this community right now who has someone on her team who is outgrowing the room.She may have noticed....
06/23/2026

There's a woman in this community right now who has someone on her team who is outgrowing the room.

She may have noticed. She may not have yet.

But the person outgrowing the room has done the math.

Tomorrow in The Permission Slip, I'm writing about the Law of the Lid and how your leadership capacity is setting the ceiling for everyone below you. And how raising it is a daily, deliberate practice, not an annual event.

This one is for every woman who leads a team and wants to understand why her best people stay, and why they go.

Come and join the community of women who lead — reading and listening every Wednesday.

Subscribe: www.debbielawrence.ca/signup

If someone you lead or someone in your life is circling a decision they can't seem to make, here are 2 things you can do...
06/22/2026

If someone you lead or someone in your life is circling a decision they can't seem to make, here are 2 things you can do in 10 minutes:

1. Ask: "If you already knew the answer, what would it be?"
I don't know what it is about those words, but it's pure magic. More often than not, it does most of the work.

2. Then ask: "Are you waiting for their information or their permission?"
If it's information, call the room. That's what it's for.
If it's permission, if what's really needed is for everyone to agree before the decision can be owned, name that. Now.

Try this with one person this week.

The team that finally gets clarity isn't waiting for a better process.

They're waiting for a decision.

If this resonated, the full picture is in Issue #13 of The Permission Slip: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/06/17/are-you-being-collaborative-or-waiting-for-permission-to-lead/

Not yet a subscriber? www.debbielawrence.ca/signup

If someone in your world is making a hire right now, here are two things you can do in 10 minutes.1. Forward them this i...
06/19/2026

If someone in your world is making a hire right now, here are two things you can do in 10 minutes.

1. Forward them this issue #09 of Thee Permission Slip - Hire for Results, Not Potential (https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/05/20/hire-for-results-not-potential/)

2. Ask them: what does success in this role look like at 30 days, 60 days, 90 days?

If they can't answer in concrete outcomes, they're not ready to post the job yet.

Both things cost nothing. One might save them six months.

The broken playbook told us our currency as women who lead was our ability to keep everyone on board.If the team agreed,...
06/18/2026

The broken playbook told us our currency as women who lead was our ability to keep everyone on board.

If the team agreed, we did it right.
If someone was unhappy with a decision, something went wrong.

That currency is buying nothing.

I heard from a client last week who sent her team a clear message after weeks of open conversation. Here's the decision. Here's why. Here's what we need from each of you to make implementation go well.

Two people on her team thanked her for finally making the call.

They'd been waiting.

The fear of disconnection that keeps the process going is almost never proportionate to what actually happens when you step through it.

Miss the issue? Read it here: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/06/17/are-you-being-collaborative-or-waiting-for-permission-to-lead/

Prefer to listen? It's on The Compassionate Leader School podcast — Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms.

Not yet a subscriber? www.debbielawrence.ca/signup

The old model of collaborative leadership has a problem.Not because collaboration doesn't work. Genuine collaboration, w...
06/17/2026

The old model of collaborative leadership has a problem.

Not because collaboration doesn't work. Genuine collaboration, when you need your team's information, experience, or perspective to make a better decision, is essential. It's a legitimate way to lead.

The problem is that the model got stretched.

Somewhere along the way it became: always involve the team. Always get buy-in. Always make sure everyone feels part of the decision.

And then the broken playbook made sure that using authority directly felt like a liability.

So the model doesn't just describe how to lead.

It describes how to avoid the cost of leading alone.

The question that changes this: Do I need their information, or do I want their permission?

Issue #13 of The Permission Slip is in inboxes now. Read it or listen to it.

Read it: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/06/17/are-you-being-collaborative-or-waiting-for-permission-to-lead/

Listen to it: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7kEjizIkhUewP2ncEylVw3

Not yet a subscriber? www.debbielawrence.ca/signup

06/16/2026

There's a woman in this community right now who has been consulting her team on a decision that was hers to make weeks ago.

The team has given their input. Some of them have moved on. She's still gathering.

She thinks she has a team problem.

She doesn't.

She has a decision she hasn't claimed.

She's not doing it wrong. She's doing exactly what the broken playbook told her to do. She’s making sure everyone feels included, making sure no one gets left out, making sure the decision feels shared before she owns it.

The broken playbook counted on that.

Tomorrow in The Permission Slip, I'm writing about what happened when I sat across from a woman like this in a coaching session. And the one question that shifted everything.

That someone might also be you.

Come and join the community of women who lead — reading and listening every Wednesday.

Subscribe: www.debbielawrence.ca/signup

I walked into Monica's office for a coaching session and knew before she said a word something had gone sideways.She ran...
06/15/2026

I walked into Monica's office for a coaching session and knew before she said a word something had gone sideways.

She ran a small manufacturing company. Her team kept bringing her problems. She kept solving them. Her own work kept waiting.

"It's just easier to do it myself," she said.

The simple act of not answering, of asking instead, changed everything.

Not dramatically. In a 30-minute conversation.

I introduced a framework called the PAR Principle: name the problem precisely, surface every possible course of action, ask for a recommendation.

She started using it with her team the following week.

Six weeks later, her team members were walking in with solutions they'd already implemented. Keeping her in the loop. Stopping by to say: "By the way, we had an issue. I handled it. Just wanted you to know."

Thirty minutes of a different approach. A fundamentally different team dynamic.

Are you the one solving every problem that walks through your door?

If this resonated, Issue #12 of The Permission Slip covers the full picture: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/06/10/one-of-the-most-expensive-business-decisions-youll-make-is-solving-it-yourself/

Let's build cultures where people stay because the work is excellent, not because leaving feels like a betrayal.
06/12/2026

Let's build cultures where people stay because the work is excellent, not because leaving feels like a betrayal.

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