At the top of the episode, I wanted to take a minute to let you know that I’ve just launched a new LinkedIn newsletter called The Suite Spot. Published weekly, it provides essential insight and practical strategies for C-suite leaders and those who develop them. In the show notes, you’ll be able to click on a link that will take you directly to it so you can subscribe.
Today, I’m going to talk about something that may seem counterintuitive for senior leaders: knowing when notto act.
This week, European leaders gathered in Paris for an emergency summit, trying to respond to rising tensions over Ukraine, shifting U.S. foreign policy, and the looming possibility of a tariff war. At the same time, the Bank of England has downgraded its economic forecast for the UK. So the pressure to do something is mounting. And in politics, bold and immediate action is often necessary.
But what about business leaders? Should they be mirroring this urgency, making decisive moves to navigate uncertainty? Or is this one of those moments where waiting – holding steady and allowing more clarity to emerge – is actually the stronger move? That’s the question today: when is fast action the right call, and when is strategic patience the wiser path?
Why Waiting Feels So Hard
We live in a culture that rewards speed. Business leaders are under enormous pressure to make decisions quickly, to deliver immediate results, to reassure employees, boards, and investors that they have everything under control. In many ways, decisiveness is seen as a hallmark of leadership. But the best leaders—the ones who stand the test of time—know that the hardest and often wisest decision is knowing when to hold steady.
Strategic patience isn’t about passivity. It’s not about avoidance or delay for the sake of it. It’s about resisting the impulse to react in the moment, creating space for better decisions, and keeping a long-term perspective even when the pressure is intense. And that’s tough, because doing something—anything—gives us a sense of control. It reassures those around us. It alleviates uncertainty, at least temporarily.
But knee-jerk decisions can be dangerous. Moving fast feels productive, but sometimes it’s just movement, not progress. Some leaders get caught in the trap of thinking that a quick response is always better, when in reality, some problems require more time to unfold before the right course of action becomes clear.
And let’s be honest: part of this is psychological. No leader wants to be seen as indecisive. There’s an underlying fear that waiting will make you look weak, or out of touch, or worse—irrelevant. But waiting is only weak if it’s coming from fear. If it’s intentional, if it’s thoughtful, then waiting can be a sign of true confidence.
The Power of Strategic Patience
So how do you know when to act and when to hold back? I believe it starts with perspective. How to respond not just to what’s happening on the surface but to better understand: what’s really going on here? Can you look beyond the immediate noise to see the larger patterns at play? Can you recognise when urgency is being driven by emotion rather than logic and resist being pulled into reactionary thinking?
One of the most valuable skills an executive can develop is the ability to recognise whether a crisis is real or if it’s just loud. Not every fire needs to be put out immediately. Some burn themselves out. Others reveal better solutions with time. The challenge is knowing which is which.
Take decision-making as an example. Rushing into a major move – whether it’s a company-wide restructuring, an acquisition, or a leadership change – can create more problems than it solves. But stepping back, creating a little breathing room, gathering diverse perspectives can help clarity emerge. The best leaders resist the pressure to decide right now and instead focus on deciding at the right moment.
One way to do this is by deliberately building in structured pauses before making big decisions. Whatever the timeframe, the key is to create space for deeper analysis. Often, what felt urgent in the moment looks very different with a little distance.
Another way to exercise strategic patience is to conduct what’s called safe-to-fail experiments. A safe-to-fail experiment is a small-scale, low-risk test designed to explore new ideas or strategies in complex environments. It comes from Dave Snowden’s complexity framework called Cynefin.
Instead of betting everything on a single big decision, safe-to-fail experiments allow leaders to probe possibilities, learn from failure without catastrophic consequences, and adapt based on real-world feedback.
These small-scale experiments are designed to be contained so they minimise risk if they fail. They’re typically lost cost so they don’t require significant financial or reputational investment. Most importantly, they’re designed for learning. The goal is to gather insights rather than guarantee immediate success.
Managing the Anxiety of Not Acting
This is important because leading in a highly volatile and uncertain situation isn’t just about managing the situation. It’s about managing yourself.
Leaders who struggle with waiting often do so because they haven’t fully confronted their own discomfort with uncertainty.
So if you find yourself itching to act, ask yourself: is this really about what’s best for the business, or is it about my own discomfort with not having an answer? Am I reacting because I feel pressure to be seen as decisive? Or because I genuinely believe this is the right move?
One of the best ways to develop strategic patience is to pay attention to the moments when waiting led to better results. Because I guarantee you’ve seen it happen. Think about a time when you didn’t react immediately—when you held back, observed, and let a situation play out before intervening. Did that extra time give you more insight? Did it lead to a stronger decision in the end? The more you train yourself to recognize those moments, the easier it becomes to trust the process.
Final Thoughts: When You Do Act, Act Decisively
Now, let me be clear: this isn’t about avoiding action forever. Strategic patience doesn’t mean never acting. It means acting at the moment of maximum leverage—when the timing is right, when the insights are clear, when the move will have the greatest impact. Or acting in a way when you can gather more information about how a system is behaving in a way that doesn’t have such a risky outcome for your business.
The best leaders don’t just resist the impulse to react too soon—they also recognize when waiting too longbecomes a liability. And that’s the balance. The goal isn’t to always wait. The goal is to know when waiting is wisdom and when action is necessary.
So the next time you feel the pressure to act quickly, take a breath. Ask yourself: Is this really the moment? Or would a little more patience lead to a better decision?
You can read a bit more about this in my newly published LinkedIn newsletter called The Suite Spot. I’ve put a link in the show notes so you can easily subscribe. And I’d love to hear from you about this topic. Have you ever held back when others wanted action – only to see a better outcome unfold? Or have you seen a rushed decision backfire?
