Vision at Altitude: Strategy, Systems, and Leading from the Top

The Cost of Indecision in Leadership: On the invisible tax leaders impose when they hesitate or defer without clarity

Diagnosing quality decisions + reflections on a grand-daddy bottleneck that causes people to quit, projects to fail, and companies to diminish

Jun 20, 2025

This post is part of a recurring series focused on Vision at Altitude: Strategy, Systems, and Leading from the Top — the first pillar of the From Here to There game plan. How do those at the helm set direction in times of rapid change? set direction in times of rapid change? We explore the mindsets, frameworks, and strategic capacities needed to guide organizations through complexity, communicate vision, and build the structures that make long-term innovation possible.

Across every level of leadership, a familiar breakdown is showing up again and again: decisions aren’t being made. Another day, the same story: this time I was fresh off of traveling and catching up with friends and colleagues, yet we got into a familiar conversation around deciders not deciding.

Throughout the highest and most powerful organizations, to the fledgling start-ups, to the established players in their own industries, it is there. I’ve directly spoken in this last week about this topic to: the data leadership in a federal governmental organization; a few startup founders; and a CTO and project lead in the industry trying to make new software and hardware products.

It affects everyone; we often hear about how people leave due to management rather than the actual job itself, and it applies here at large. So we know the pain points and the feelings, now, how do we frame this discussion?

Reframing the role of CEO

I say role rather than title. My take has evolved, from a title of import, a prestigious position, or even a “founder” - none of them capture what I now see a CEO as having to do, or be.

In fact, I almost actually would say “Chief Decision-Maker” is the more appropriate term than simply “CEO.” Or, for those that recall the GWB era, The Chief Decider.

As silly as the term sounds, that’s exactly what it’s about.

What does a decision actually consist of?

There’s more to unpack than this post can contain (stay tuned for future breakdowns), but at their core…

Quality decisions have to be:

Contextualized
Made
Enduring

Contextualized, meaning they reflect both the chaos of the present and a sober sense of plausible futures — along with the constraints, parameters, and downstream effects baked into the decision space.

By made, I mean just that — chosen. Not considered. Not postponed. Not deferred Not equivocated or reassembled options for others to choose from. The very act of path-selection is what has to happen here; the reality of the selection and decision pressure must be confronted. It is a divisive action. (I hesitate to use harsh language as I fear it lends too much to performative confidence and problematic takes on leadership, but I do think there is a certain potential-for, or space-for, a lack of harmony here; this isn’t about false bravado; it’s about owning the cost of clarity).

Not every potential path will be realized. Darlings will be killed. And the contributions of smart, invested people may be left behind. That’s the cost of clarity — and of leadership — and really, the cost of entry to doing things in the world.

As for durability, decisions must be enduring in that the selection leads to a post-decision environment that can be built upon. Yes, sometimes they must be revised — and that’s part of the job. But constant reversals erode trust and stall progress. The key is expectation management: are we building a culture where decisions mean something? Where action can follow? If not, the real problem isn’t speed or uncertainty — it’s instability masquerading as flexibility.

Chief Deciders Must Do These Things

There is a painful degree of impossibility to the functioning of a project or organization going anywhere — no less, surviving — without these things happening:

Choose an informed, educated, strategy-aware decision, OR
1. Delegate someone else to make the decision AND
2. Authorize them fully to do it
Own the path selection:
1. Either the decision itself, OR the delegation of authority to the project leader
2. If delegated or handed over to someone else, you have to either
  1. Give them full authority about it
  2. OR be consistent with your tipping the scales or offering your input; fluctuations about agreements are absolute killers of trust, momentum, and movement in general.
Steward the consequences. Be real with yourself and others about what happened, and maintain sobriety about how the choice affected leadership capital.

In other words: make the selection; own and reinforce the authority of the choice; and continue to stay responsive to what happens after the fact.

Can you lead an organization without being a Chief Decision Maker?

Yes, but if you do, you will need to have the right relationship to the Decision Maker, and ideally set them up with the right information and contextualization pipeline or resources, so you can focus on whatever it is your own talent or strong suits are.

If you are the chief decider, these requirements must happen through your own agency; if you have hired a CEO-type person to make decisions or run things, you must ensure and empower them to do this work, and perhaps listen to you (if you are a founder or visionary and still want say in what’s going on)

Figure 1: A dire timeline for poor decision making practices.

Consequences of Poor Decision Making

A quick list of real life things that have happened when Deciders don’t do the deciding well, in order of light to severe outcomes:

Loss of momentum
Decrease of buy-in to project or vision
Cultural norms shift towards towards stagnation
Expectations become irresolute leadership and hesitancy is incentivized
Talent leaving the company
A reputation for folks not wanting to work with you or your group for not being able to sort themselves out

In short, the the role of Chief Decider is critical to the sustainability of pursuing a vision, at large. This is never more critical and relevant than those actually trying to build new things, or bring into the world that which has not yet existed. Doing the creation and building is hard as it is, doing it without clear decision making and administrative choices being done in a reliable way is even harder.

It’s critical to care for this leadership and decision making process, in and of itself. Without its cultivation, the processes of creation and development carry an added weight — one that’s almost impossible to shoulder alone.

“Take special care of your decision making so the actual creative work can proceed as smoothly as possible.”

What to do if your team or organization has displaced (or misplaced) its decision making on to the creators itself?

How are decisions made — or dodged — in your organization? And what would be possible if they weren’t; do you have any stories about how the decision-making bottleneck affected your project’s success?

From Here to There: Strategy and Mentorship for Innovators

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