Two out of three leaders would rather look decisive and get it wrong than look uncertain and get it right.
New research from 3,159 professionals across 25 organisations reveals the structural bias distorting decision-making at every level of leadership.
This is not a personality problem. It is an operating system - and it is correctable.
Four findings.
None of them comfortable.
Most leaders choose the appearance of decisiveness over a better outcome.
The ratio holds across every sector, seniority level, and geography we have measured. It is not a personality finding. It is a systemic one.
The bias does not live at the top. It lives in the layer directly beneath it.
C-suite executives are the least likely to perform certainty. The SLT and manager layer - the people who set the emotional weather for your entire organisation - are the most likely.
This behaviour has a price tag.
A conservative estimate places the annual cost of the Decisiveness Crisis to the UK economy at £20 billion. The figure is currently under independent stress-test by leading economists.
There is a minority already doing something different.
The leaders who resist the bias share three measurable cognitive characteristics. They are already in your organisation. This report shows you how to find them.
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the report.
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The full findings, the methodology, and the cognitive markers of the 35%. Forty pages. Built to stand up in a budget conversation.
Promise: no “jump on a quick call?” emails.The Decisiveness Crisis
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Built on five years of original data.
Sam Conniff
Author · Co-founder
Author of Be More Pirate and co-founder of Uncertainty Experts. Sam set the research agenda and frames the findings.
Katherine Templar Lewis
Lead Scientist
Katherine led the methodology and analysis behind the Decisiveness Crisis dataset - 3,159 professionals across 25 organisations, the largest workplace study of decisiveness preference we are aware of.
