Uncertainty is a tough opportunity for leaders. How can it be otherwise? If there was enough certainty, where’s the challenge?

Too often, leaders find themselves stuck in decision bottlenecks or recycling the same decisions again and again. The same topics return to the agenda like a boomerang. Why? Because the hard-smart work wasn’t done – or worse, it was started but never finished.

When the pressure’s on, it’s tempting to reach for shiny solutions: run a disruptive innovation workshop, review your AI-digital strategy or hire some social-savvy Gen Zs. Any one of those might be the right move – or none of them. Your job is to determine the optimal path, not just discussions to frame and reframe the problem in hope the “best” solution pops up.

And that means breaking free from the bottlenecks where decisions stall in endless loops of debate, and avoiding the trap of recycling decisions because no one had the conviction to see them through.

Leadership requires hard-smart work. You dig to understand the real problem, you develop meaningful options, and you deliver by making a call and standing behind it. You back yourself, and your team.

Yes, there’s risk in that. But there’s more risk in inertia disguised as consensus. If you don’t decide, someone else – or circumstances – will decide for you. And when you’re reacting instead of leading, you’re no longer shaping your strategy, you’re being shaped by it.

So the next time a decision keeps coming back like a persistent headache, ask yourself: have we really done the hard-smart work? Or are we just stuck in the loop?