At first glance, the answer seems simple: “yes and yes.” But when we look more carefully, autonomy can be like love during carnival: beautiful at first, intense for a few moments, and very fragile when reality arrives on Monday morning.

Here is why:

The mistakes

In the beginning, you will make mistakes. Many of them. You will say things you should not say, promise things you should not promise, forget details that matter, misunderstand expectations, and sometimes make decisions that can damage your relationship with the client, the team, or the company.

Autonomy is not only the freedom to decide. It is also the responsibility to live with the consequences of your decisions. Are you ready to face the feeling of having failed? Are you ready to feel incompetent for a while? Are you ready to make mistakes in front of people who expected you to already know what you were doing?

The client does not care

The client wants results. The client is paying to solve a problem. Most clients do not care if you are new in the role, if you are still learning, or if this is your first time handling that type of situation.

After the mistake happens, it will probably reach your managers, directors, or executives. And then comes the real question: will they defend you? Will they protect your learning curve? Will they still support autonomy if the mistake creates financial loss, damages trust, or even contributes to a canceled contract?

When you start asking these questions honestly, you may be surprised to see that the initial “yes and yes” quickly becomes “no and no.”

And honestly, I understand why. Every professional, regardless of role or seniority, can be fired. Even business owners, who technically have no boss, can be punished by the market. Every mistake can cost money, clients, reputation, or opportunities.

So the problem is not autonomy itself. The problem is that many companies want the benefits of autonomy without accepting the cost of learning. They want proactive people, but they punish mistakes. They want independent professionals, but they centralize decisions. They want ownership, but only when everything goes well.

That is not autonomy. That is a trap.

But I started this article to help, not to push you into sadness. So here are some points I would use, as a leader, to manage mistakes while helping professionals grow until they reach real seniority inside the team.

Determine how much you are willing to lose

There is no company that never loses a client, money, time, or an opportunity. Loss is part of business. The question is not whether mistakes will happen. They will. The question is how much you are willing to lose while people are learning.

Calculating this loss and treating it as a risk is essential. It is a leader’s responsibility to understand that professionals will make mistakes and that these mistakes must be managed, not ignored. Once this risk is identified, the company can create ways to help people reach seniority faster and with less damage.

This is also where data can help leadership make better decisions. A platform like Saint Jude can support this process by showing how professionals are evolving, where mistakes are concentrated, which tasks generate more rework, how much time and cost are being consumed, and where risks are increasing. Autonomy without visibility becomes guesswork. Autonomy with data becomes controlled growth.

New employees, small clients

If loss is inevitable, the next question is: how much are we willing to lose? Ten thousand dollars or one thousand? A strategic client or a small internal activity? A critical delivery or a low-risk project?

My principle is simple: if we have to lose, let the loss be small. For this reason, people who have recently started in a role should begin with smaller clients, minor projects, internal activities, or lower-risk responsibilities. Not because they are incapable, but because they are still learning how to make decisions with autonomy.

Giving autonomy does not mean throwing someone into the most dangerous situation and hoping for the best. That is not leadership. That is negligence disguised as empowerment.

Throw them into the fire — but not alone

The best way to learn is to face real doubts. Each client will bring different questions, different objections, different priorities, and different levels of pressure. These situations are valuable for new professionals because they force learning to happen in real life, not only in training sessions.

However, there is a difference between exposing someone to reality and abandoning them inside a burning building.

If I place a senior professional beside a junior professional to manage everything, the most likely result is that the senior will do all the work while the junior watches the show. The junior will attend the meeting, nod, take notes, and learn very little about making decisions.

My approach is different: let the new professional face the situation, listen to the client, receive the question, and understand the pressure. If they do not know how to answer, they should bring the question to the team or to leadership. Then we help them think, structure the answer, and respond correctly to the client.

This creates learning without unnecessary damage. The professional gains real experience, the client receives a better answer, and the company reduces the risk of a serious mistake.

Autonomy needs boundaries

Many people confuse autonomy with doing whatever they want. That is not autonomy. That is chaos.

Autonomy needs boundaries. People need to know what they can decide alone, what needs alignment, what must be escalated, and which mistakes the company is willing to tolerate. Without these boundaries, autonomy becomes a political game where everyone is free until something goes wrong — and then suddenly no one was authorized to decide anything.

A good leader makes the limits clear before the problem happens. What can this person decide? What level of risk can they take? Which clients can they handle? Which costs can they approve? Which commitments can they make? Which topics require validation before moving forward?

The clearer the boundaries, the safer the autonomy.

Autonomy is earned and designed

Autonomy should not be given randomly, and it should not be denied forever. It must be designed. A junior professional may have autonomy over a small task. A mid-level professional may have autonomy over a project area. A senior professional may have autonomy over decisions that involve clients, risks, costs, and priorities.

The point is not to control everyone forever. The point is to increase autonomy as the professional proves they can handle more complexity, more pressure, and more consequences.

That is how autonomy becomes a growth path instead of a beautiful speech in a company presentation.

And you, what do you think? How do you manage autonomy and professional growth in your company? Like this article, comment on LinkedIn, or share it on your social networks.

See you soon!

Erik Scaranello