The One Thing All Leaders Need
July 2026 Blog
A CEO I worked with had what the Social Style model would call an Amiable Analytical profile — analytical by nature, amiable close underneath. In practice, that meant scientific, data-driven, deliberate, thorough. It also meant relationship-protective, conflict-averse, harmony-seeking. On paper, a thoughtful and humane executive, and he genuinely was one. He was also, by his team's account and eventually by his own, unable to make a decision.
Two brakes and no accelerator
What makes that particular blend so difficult is that both halves pull in the same direction. The analytical side says keep gathering information, don't be wrong, more data is always better. The amiable side says avoid friction, preserve harmony, treat disagreement as a cost to the relationship. Both are forms of caution, and they wear different clothes, so from the inside they don't feel redundant. They feel like thoroughness and decency.
Most profiles contain their own internal argument. A Driver/Analytical leader, for instance, has impatience shoving up against caution — the two compete, and somewhere in the friction a decision gets made. This blend has no dissent. Nothing inside him pushes toward closure, so deliberation simply expands to fill whatever time it's given. That's the source of the stuck feeling his team kept describing: not indecision exactly, but deliberation that never converts into a call.
The effects were concrete, and they went further than slow decisions. He often didn't notice that a decision was needed at all, or what the process for making it should be — so things stalled before anyone realized they were stalled. When people worked the process to their advantage, he tended not to catch it. Sometimes they bypassed the process entirely and got to him after a decision had technically been made, which meant the last person in the room frequently shaped the outcome. And when his team argued, he waited patiently for a solution to emerge rather than stepping in to steer them toward one.
His executive team wanted him to change: declare decisions clearly, engage in conflict, force people to reconcile, create alignment. Seems reasonable enough. There is nothing wrong with wanting that. But there's also a real possibility that some of these tendencies never fully go away, and waiting for a leader to overhaul his natural style is usually a losing bet — for him and for the people waiting on him.
The realistic version of change
Changing small things about ourselves is far easier than changing our core. This CEO didn't need a personality transplant. He needed versatility — a skill most effective CEOs use every day without naming it.
Versatility is not becoming a chameleon, and it isn't abandoning who you are or performing a version of yourself you don't recognize. It's knowing how the other styles operate and, for the length of a single conversation, borrowing behaviors that let them work well with you. It's temporary and situational. It’s an act of leadership to adapt to their preferences, and then you come back to your style.
“Versatility is not becoming a different person. It is borrowing specific behaviors from the opposite style, on purpose, for the length of a decision — then returning home.” Coaching principle, adapted from Social Style theory
In addition to versatility, the CEO needs an improvement plan that effectively enables him to “practice”. Here are four ideas he could consider:
#1. Put a deadline where your instinct won't
The analytical instinct is to keep collecting information indefinitely, because no amount of data ever feels quite sufficient. Absent an external constraint, there is no natural stopping point — the analysis just keeps going until something outside of it intervenes. So, build the constraint in advance, while you're still calm.
Set the decision date before you start the analysis. Define what “enough information” means ahead of time — 70% confidence, say — so that the moment of decision is the crossing of a threshold you already agreed on rather than making a call under pressure from people who are complaining about waiting. And say it out loud in language that forecloses the delay: “I will decide by Friday with the information I have, even if it isn't complete.” The sentence sounds almost too simple. It works because it removes the temptation to keep gathering information and others’ assessments.
#2. Treat conflict avoidance as a cost, not a virtue
The amiable instinct treats keeping the peace as inherently good. For a CEO, it is usually the opposite. Unmade decisions and unaddressed problems do more damage to relationships over time than the short, uncomfortable conversations.
Our CEO could ask: “Every week I put this off, who is paying the cost of my comfort?” There is almost always a name attached to the answer. It helps to say the trade-off out loud, too — avoided conflict is really deferred conflict, and it comes back at a higher price. A difficult decision delivered with care lands as more respectful than an indefinitely delayed one, because at least it treats people as adults who can handle an answer.
#3. Decide first, determine how to communicate it second
Amiable-leaning leaders tend to make the decision and manage its reception at the same time. It feels considerate. What actually happens is that both jobs get done worse: the deciding slows down, and the decision itself gets sanded down as it's being made, because it's being shaped in real time around someone's anticipated negative reaction.
Splitting the two helps. Make the call cleanly against criteria you already set, without worrying about anyone's feelings. Then determine how to communicate it with empathy. A decision made and compassionately communicated is the objective.
#4. Borrow someone else's instincts
I love the idea of an accountability partner - a trusted colleague with the opposite style — a Driver, decisive and action-oriented, or an Expressive, outspoken and comfortable with friction — and give them one narrow job. For our CEO, they would not decide for him. They are aware of when deliberation has quietly turned into avoidance.
Ask them to bring to your attention if this is still analysis, or has it become avoidance?
Before the next big decision
The good news is that none of this requires a new personality. It requires noticing, at the right moment, that a decision is looming. When that moment arrives, five questions are usually enough to interrupt it. Have I set a specific date by which I will decide? Have I named, even roughly, what enough information looks like? Can I say who is paying a cost for this decision remaining unmade? Have I separated what I will decide from how I will communicate it? And have I asked my sounding board whether this still looks like analysis?
Noel Tichy's idea of a Teachable Point of View asks you to articulate — out loud and in writing — the criteria by which you know a decision is ready. For this CEO, ‘help’ looks like a natural way to force himself to notice his preference for open-ended analysis. His team can be helpful to him once they know what his model is and, instead of complaining, bring insights to him to bring him back to his model.
It's a good question for any leader, honestly, and a hard one to answer well: if you had to teach someone else exactly how you decide when a decision is ready, what would you tell them?