BE BIGGER #3: Stop Pretending Decisiveness Is Mean

Somewhere along the way, decisiveness got a bad reputation.

People started confusing making a call with being aggressive.

Having an opinion with being inflexible.

Choosing a direction with “not being collaborative.”

That’s nonsense. Literal utter nonsense.

Indecision is what actually drains teams.

Indecision is what stretches timelines, bloats meetings, and quietly erodes trust while everyone pretends they’re being thoughtful.

So I stopped apologizing for deciding things.

I stopped soft-launching recommendations.

I stopped ending sentences with “but open to thoughts” when the decision was already clear.

I stopped asking for consensus from people who weren’t going to own the outcome anyway.

Now, when it’s time to decide, I decide.

And here’s what happened immediately:

The room exhaled.

People stopped circling.

Work started moving again.

Because most teams don’t want endless discussion.

They want direction.

Let’s be honest about what’s really going on when decisiveness is labeled “mean”:

None of those are leadership problems.

They’re avoidance problems.

Being decisive isn’t shutting people down.

It’s respecting their time.

It’s saying, “I heard the input. I weighed it. Here’s the call.”

It’s taking responsibility instead of outsourcing risk to the group.

And no — decisiveness does not mean rigidity.

You can change course later.

You can adapt with new information.

But you cannot lead if everything is always up for debate.

This is what BE BIGGER looks like here:

If someone equates decisiveness with disrespect, what they’re really saying is they preferred ambiguity.

And ambiguity was never helping anyone.

Decide the thing.

Momentum lives on the other side.

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