Decisive Leadership: What Makes Great Leaders Stand Out

There is an increasing demand for a different kind of leadership in today’s highly complex & volatile business landscape. An article by McKinsey & Company (2024) on organizational health describes how effective leaders create value & sustainable competitive advantage through their ability to make day-today operational decisions leading their teams towards performance goals to deliver exemplary outcomes, both short and long-term.

Healthcare leaders are not immune to this challenging environment as they continue to navigate through emerging trends in science and innovation such as AI, confronting ever-changing regulations & reimbursement payment models, tackling increasing conflicts on intergenerational dynamics, racial & gender bias, and redefining life & work priorities of their employees to name a few. All of these factors combined build pressure on leaders across all levels to develop essential traits that drive the highest level of effectiveness and efficiency.

Decisive leadership has been found to be an essential building block to successfully manage the overwhelmingly evolving landscape outside of personal & social motivation, discipline, flexibility, and empathy. An analysis of data conducted by Folkman (2019) revealed four key enabling behaviors to facilitate decision-making skills among leaders & how to execute them. These are deep knowledge and expertise, clear strategy and direction, courage & delivering results.

This finding is supported by a Harvard Business Review study revealing that high-performing CEOs stand out not for consistently being able to make the right decisions. Rather, it is more about deciding earlier, faster, and with greater conviction. There is the desire to be the first to make the move so as not to lose the opportunity to get ahead.

The authors Lytkina Botelho, Rosenkoetter Powell, Kincaid, & Wang (2017) also found that 94 percent of leaders who are rated as poor on decisiveness skills are attributed to deciding too little or too late and only 6 percent are due to deciding too quickly. In addition, they found that there is a higher likelihood of losing valuable talent as a result of frustration caused by slow decision-makers, which acts as bottlenecks to progress.

Decisiveness comes with risk that requires courage and confidence to make tough decisions in the absence of complete information. The leader has to leverage past experiences that provide insight into the data at hand, complemented by expert advice from peers & colleagues.

Jerry Bowe, CEO of Vi-Jon, stated that so long as he has 65 percent certainty of the answer, he does not second guess making a call. He frames his action by asking himself two important questions: how much impact would it cause if he makes the wrong decision, and how much hold up it can cause if he does not proceed? As the cliche goes, ‘Perfection is the enemy of progress.’

Lastly, decisive leaders fully embrace the power of follow-through. They relentlessly pursue the course until they see their decisions come to fruition. These leaders ensure that they actively support the implementation by addressing concerns, clarifying ambiguities, providing resources, & redirecting the team as necessary. By demonstrating these behaviors, decisive leaders earn trust, inspire confidence & foster a culture of experimentation, innovation, & accountability.