The Fine Line Between Indecisiveness and Agility

Leaders do things which ordinary team members don’t, including keeping an open mind. Reality gets a say in things, and leaders need to be listening. A fool calls this indecisiveness, but a wise person calls it agility.

We teach leaders to be decisive. We coach them to focus on results, goals, or the endgame. Fine, but here are three things we should also teach…

Don’t identify yourself with your decisions or your plans. If you do, changing your mind will seem like you're weakening who you actually are. That’s ridiculous.?“I base decisions on facts. When the facts change, I change my mind,” said either John Maynard Keynes or Paul Samuelson (take your pick, but you may have to change your mind). Pride and perseverance are wonderful things but they can’t overrule judgment and common sense. Always give yourself the flexibility to change.

Face reality – it’s more powerful than your pride. Not to bore you with battlefield tactics, but the Allies had to radically change their plan after landing over 1mm soldiers and 171,000 vehicles in France after D-Day in 1944.?Why? As Eisenhower said, because “the line we actually held when the breakout began on D+50 was approximately that planned for D+5…(this) had to be accepted. Battle is not a one-sided affair.” So Ike and his staff changed their thinking to match reality and attacked to the south instead of east, changing a plan that had existed for months. The first plan wasn’t bad, or wrong, it just didn’t match reality in the moment.

“Respectful” silence ain’t golden – it’s garbage. ?Author, former executive, and leadership expert Margaret Heffernan wrote, “I have seen too many stand-offs where a change of mind was resisted because it was deemed a humiliating climbdown. I have sat in too many boardrooms listening to hostile silence.” If your decision is flawed, people in your organization know it. Make sure you have an open channel for discussion, reflection, and modification. When the stakes are high and the rocks fly, the last thing a leader wants is a herd of silently nodding heads.

Sounds simple enough. Separate yourself from your plans, face reality, and listen to other perspectives. No leader who does those things effectively can be called indecisive.

Excellent reading on this topic:

Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril by Margaret Heffernan (New York: Warner and Co, 2011). Her quote above isn’t from this interesting book but from a 2019 Financial Times article titled There is Nothing Wrong With Changing Your Mind

Follow Me: The Human Element In Leadership by Aubrey Newman (Novato CA: Presidio, 1990) particularly Chapter 21 “To Err is Human, To Admit Goofs is Wisdom”

Crusade In Europe by Dwight D. Eisenhower (New York: Doubleday, 1948) I am currently re-reading my ancient copy of this one. The quote and figures are from pp. 267-270.