[mschuster91]

A way to sidestep this is by giving people financial authority. Say you're a team lead of half a dozen developers, so you get a blank approval for anything your team orders under 500$, 1 level of review for 500-2k$, and a third level (or HR) approval for hires and raises.

Of course, for that to work a company would have to place trust even into lowest levels of management, and that is what causes a lot of friction: people are feeling the disconnect between them being responsible on one side for the success of a contract that brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, but apparently cannot be trusted to not waste 20$ on someone who managed to drown his computer keyboard in coffee by accident, no, that has to go through three levels of approval.