Yesterday I wrote about a company president who spent nine months avoiding a decision he could have made in minutes. In their position, I might have done exactly the same thing.
When the stakes are high and the team gets defensive upon hearing a new vision, my instinct is to be patient. Have the conversations, understand their perspective, and make them understand mine. Group settings, one-on-ones, whatever it takes. Time-intensive, yes. But the hope is that the investment pays off.
The difference between patient leadership and strategic avoidance, though, is the mindset behind the conversations. Patient leadership has a purpose — a clear view of what’s at stake and why it matters. And at some point, the clarity needs to be stated: if you’re coming along for the ride, great. If not, that’s okay — but we will go ahead without you.
Strategic avoidance is bringing up the topic every now and then, noticing the resistance, and not doing anything about it. Hoping that over time, everyone will accept the new vision as the status quo.
The president was caught between conflicting desires — intense pressure to deliver results and a desperate desire to maintain camaraderie and harmony. He neither wanted to make the painful choices nor force compliance. He convinced himself that patience and persuasion would eventually win over the country managers.
What he missed was the psychological courage to accept that strategy is scarcity’s child. True focus inherently requires ruffling feathers, going against the grain, and making some people feel alienated. He confused good leadership with universal consensus — completely missing that universal buy-in usually just signals an absence of choice.
The invisible force running the show wasn’t just the fear of interpersonal conflict. It was the institutional inertia of well-entrenched interests. His country managers were structurally incentivized to protect their own turf, budgets, and portfolios — not to embrace a collaborative vision that asked them to give something up.
So he defaulted to a something-for-everyone strategy. And paralyzed the organization just to avoid bruising some egos.