I watched an education leader spend three weeks trying to get buy-in on a template.

Three weeks. Multiple stakeholder meetings. Revised proposals. Compromise versions.

For a template.

Meanwhile, a critical decision about which customer segments would get live training versus self-serve content got made in a Slack thread while she was in those meetings.

Guess which decision actually mattered to the business?

That leader? It was me.

Here's what nobody tells education leaders: Not every decision needs your influence, and treating them all equally is burning you out while simultaneously making you less effective.

We've been taught that good leaders "have a seat at the table." That we need to "make our voices heard." That influence equals visibility.

So we show up everywhere. We weigh in on everything. We fight for input on decisions that frankly don't need us.

And then we wonder why we're exhausted, why stakeholders seem annoyed when we speak up, and why the decisions that actually matter seem to happen without us.

Not all decisions are created equal. Understanding the difference changes everything about where you spend your influence capital.

Majority Rule Decisions
These are consensus-driven. Multiple stakeholders have legitimate input. The goal is alignment across functions.

Example: Which learning platform to adopt company-wide

Your role here is clear: Be present. Provide your expertise. Advocate for education-specific requirements. This is where your seat at the table matters.

Unanimous Decisions
These require everyone's agreement because they affect everyone's work directly. One "no" can block progress.

Example: Customer data privacy policies that impact what learner information you can track

Your role: Understand the constraints. Voice deal-breakers early. But recognize these aren't education decisions—they're organizational decisions that happen to affect education.

DRI-Driven Decisions
Someone owns this decision. They might gather input, but ultimately, it's their call to make. This is the vast majority of day-to-day decisions.

Example: A product manager deciding which in-app tooltips to build this quarter

Your role: Offer perspective if asked. Then let it go.

Education leaders consistently over-index on trying to influence DRI-driven decisions while under-investing in the majority rule and unanimous decisions that actually determine our strategic constraints.

We spend hours crafting the perfect recommendation for someone else's decision (that they're going to make anyway based on their priorities), then show up unprepared to the platform selection meeting that will dictate our tech stack for the next three years.

We insert ourselves into every product review, every content conversation, every customer touchpoint discussion—because we're terrified that if we're not in the room, education won't be represented.

But here's the thing: Being in every room doesn't make you influential. It makes you exhausted.

Strategic education leaders recognize that influence is a finite resource. Every time you spend it on a decision that doesn't need you, you have less of it for decisions that do.

They ask different questions:

And critically: "What decision is happening right now that I'm missing because I'm in this meeting?"

Sometimes the reason you're fighting to influence a decision isn't because it needs your expertise. It's because you're uncomfortable with the level of trust (or lack thereof) between functions.

You don't trust Product to consider education. So you insert yourself into product decisions.

You don't trust Marketing to communicate value correctly. So you try to wordsmith every customer message.

You don't trust CS to recommend the right learning path. So you try to control every escalation.

That's not strategic influence. That's organizational anxiety masquerading as leadership.

But the conceptual shift has to happen first: Your job isn't to influence every decision. Your job is to influence the right decisions, at the right time, with the right level of involvement.

Everything else is noise.

Think about the last week. How many meetings did you attend? How many decisions did you try to influence?

Now ask yourself: How many of those were actually majority rule or unanimous decisions that required your expertise?

And how many were you just... in the room?

The gap between those two numbers is where your burnout lives.

Learning by Design is written by Courtney Sembler. Courtney currently helps companies build scalable customer education programs. After spending over a decade scaling HubSpot Academy globally, she now explores the systems, strategies, and realities of workplace learning, leadership, and customer experience—the kind that drives retention, adoption, and revenue by design, not by accident. Published twice weekly with monthly deep dives. Connect with her on LinkedIn and subscribe to Learning by Design.