Why Every Hiring Process Needs One Decision Maker
Choosing the right people for your business is the most important thing you will do. So you might think that you need a team to get it right. Getting buy-in is a real thing, but it’s also a huge risk if not done strategically.
You probably don’t need a hiring panel. But you do need what I’d call a hiring thread. You need a consistent voice that carries the company’s values, expectations, and standards from start to finish.
This is the person that holds the line.
Whether you’re a team of three or three hundred, every hiring process needs a final decision maker. Sometimes that’s you. Sometimes that’s a dedicated executive. But it has to be someone.
This choice can’t be random. It must be someone who actually holds the through-line of your company’s culture and values. This isn’t an HR function, it’s a strategic one. And it will fundamentally change how your business operates.
Without that, every hiring cycle (and every business) will drift. A different team here. A different standard there. And eventually, these small fractures turn into cracks.
Suddenly, the culture you worked so hard to build starts to bend in ways you didn’t intend.
The Most Underrated Voice in Your Hiring Process
Most of the time, you, as the business owner, could probably just make the decision yourself. And in smaller businesses—you will. That’s normal.
But even when the final say is yours, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pull in other voices along the way. The key is knowing who actually adds value.
You may be surprised by whose voice I’ve given the most weight to in my own experience. It wasn’t my leadership team. It wasn’t the department head. It wasn’t even the person who would be managing the role we were hiring for day-to-day.
It was always my administrative assistant.
The way candidates react to and treat your scheduler or admin? That’s the real interview. Are they responsive? Do they follow basic instructions? Do they treat that person with respect? And top administrative assistants have both great predictive intuition and solid assessment skills.
If my assistant ever told me, “Lauren, this person is a red flag,” that was the most important filter.
Because people tend to show who they really are when they think the power is off the table.
Your Managers Might Not Be The Experts You Think They Are
I’ve had leaders on my team who were great at interviewing—because they hired often. But I’ve also had leaders whose skills got rusty between hires because they didn’t do it enough to stay sharp. That’s why I stayed in the seat as the final say—even when I let them run the process. Because I was the only one bringing consistency.
And that consistency is your culture’s backbone.
Even with the best intent, when that hiring muscle isn’t used, leaders can’t help but fall victim to shortcuts, being swayed by personality over substance, and chasing the shiniest object to fill that seat that’s likely causing them stress.
Build Your Hiring Thread Without Building A Panel
You don’t have to build a panel. You don’t have to let five people vote. But you can bring others in along the way.
Let your managers shadow you. Let them get experience and training on how to build these skills. Let the candidate meet their potential boss. Let your admin run point on scheduling and flag any red flags. Interviewing is a strategic initiative. So let that sit where it’s meant to.
But hold the thread yourself—or hand it to someone who can do it as consistently as you would.
What Happens When You Lose The Thread
Consensus hiring is diluted. With clear direction, a solid list of behaviors for fit, and a reliable system, you don’t need a handful of opinions to get you there. You just need a thread. And someone strong enough to hold it.
If you hand off hiring to different people every time, you’ll lose control of what you’re really building. And that’s how companies end up with culture drift—a slow shift away from the core that made them great in the first place.
Hiring is the most important thing you’ll do as you grow your business. So why would you let it up to chance?
Need a Gut Check Before You Make the Call?
Sometimes you just need to talk it out—someone to help you stress-test your thinking before you pull the trigger. That’s exactly what my Office Hours sessions are for.
Whether you’re stuck between two candidates, second-guessing your gut, or just need to process the risk and reward—you can book a single session and walk away with clarity.
[Book Office Hours Here – $250 for a focused strategy session.]
About the Author
Lauren Michele Fields led teams in sales and marketing, managed P&L, and opened new markets before she ever wrote a playbook. Then she did that too—sales processes, hiring frameworks, onboarding systems, leadership development, people operations, new product development, and training programs across every function of a growing company. Not as an HR professional. As the operator who needed it to scale.
She built The Modern Small Business Platform because the tools she used in corporate don’t exist at small business scale—and they should. Hiring, Simplified and Align Your Business are the systems she wishes someone had handed her earlier.
She writes about hiring, leadership, and what it actually takes for a business to thrive at laurenmichelefields.com/blog.
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