The only way to fully empower the project leader would be to take myself out of the project update meetings. I probably shouldn’t have been their in the first place, and this handicapped the project leader. I would communicate the change, indicated that I am empowering the project leader to make all the decisions and that you view the update meeting more of an alignment meeting than a decision meeting. That is, I am expecting decisions to made daily and not wait for any formal meetings to decide.