How to Make Decisions that Stick

Most leadership teams don’t struggle to make decisions. They struggle to make decisions that stick.

In a past life, I worked on a leadership team that prided ourselves on how quickly we could move forward on something. We would hash out an issue, agree, and move on before lunch.

It felt efficient.

Until the same issues resurfaced a few weeks later.

When we dug deeper, we saw a pattern. We were making decisions within our little bubble. We rarely gathered input from others in the company or from key external partners who would have to either carry out the change or be impacted by the change. And when uncertainty crept in, everyone defaulted to one person to make the final call.

We weren’t wrong to move fast. But we did (eventually) see that we were moving alone.

Over time, we started slowing down. Not to delay progress, but to involve the right voices earlier. We began asking:

• Who else needs to weigh in before we decide?

• Who will this decision impact most?

• Who will own it after we leave this room?

At first, it felt slow. Sometimes too slow. But the payoff was immediate: decisions that once needed constant revisiting suddenly stuck. People moved faster afterward because they had clarity, confidence, and ownership.

That’s yet another paradox of leading: slowing down early helps you speed up later.

If you want decisions that last, try:

• Engage before you decide. Ask for input from those closest to the work.

• Clarify who decides. Input is not the same as a vote, but it creates alignment.

• Model shared ownership. A team that always looks to one person for the answer doesn’t need more direction. It needs more trust.

The real test of leadership isn’t how fast your team can decide.

It’s how well they can decide together.

Because making decisions is easy. Making them stick is the hard part.