The Decisions That Shape Businesses
Spend enough time in business and you begin to notice an interesting pattern.
Every industry has its own explanation for success.
Marketing leaders will tell you that the strongest brands win. Technology businesses naturally place innovation at the centre of every conversation. Investors often talk about capital allocation, while management consultants understandably focus on strategy, operating models and execution.
None of those perspectives are wrong. In fact, they are all important. Yet after more than twenty years working alongside founders, CEOs and leadership teams, I’ve become increasingly convinced that they are often describing the symptoms rather than the underlying cause.
When I look back at the organisations that have genuinely changed the trajectory of their business, I rarely remember them because they discovered a revolutionary strategy or deployed a piece of technology before everyone else. I remember them because they made a series of difficult leadership decisions at exactly the right time.
That observation has stayed with me throughout my career because, on the surface, many businesses are remarkably similar. They compete in the same sectors, target the same customers, recruit from the same talent pools and, increasingly, have access to the same technology. Yet one organisation builds momentum year after year while another gradually loses its way.
I’ve come to believe the explanation lies less in what those businesses do and far more in who is making the decisions.
One conversation in particular has repeated itself more times than I can remember. A founder or CEO explains that growth has slowed. Revenue has plateaued, margins are under pressure or a previously successful strategy no longer seems to deliver the same results. Naturally, the first instinct is to examine the obvious variables. Marketing spend is reviewed, sales performance is scrutinised, product roadmaps are reassessed and operational efficiencies are explored. All sensible places to start.
What rarely happens at the beginning of that conversation is an honest discussion about whether the leadership team has evolved at the same pace as the business itself.
That isn’t because leaders avoid difficult conversations. More often, it’s because leadership change is deeply personal. The people who helped build a business are often the same people who have earned the trust, loyalty and friendship of the founder. Challenging that dynamic requires a different kind of courage to changing a pricing model or investing in new technology.
Yet businesses evolve whether we are ready for them to or not.
The capabilities required to launch a business are not necessarily the capabilities required to scale one. Likewise, the leadership team that successfully guides an organisation through one phase of growth may not be the team best equipped for the next. Recognising that reality isn’t a criticism of individuals. It’s an acknowledgement that businesses, markets and customer expectations are constantly changing.
Looking back, I’ve realised that the most successful organisations don’t simply invest in better products or better processes. They invest time in asking uncomfortable questions about leadership before circumstances force those questions upon them.
Who do we need to become over the next three years?
Does our current leadership team reflect that ambition?
Where are our blind spots?
Who challenges our thinking?
What capabilities will become critical as the business grows?
They’re deceptively simple questions, but they shape almost every important decision that follows.
This is one of the reasons I’ve gradually changed the way I think about executive search. Early in my career, I saw recruitment as the beginning of the process. Today, I see it as one possible outcome of a much broader leadership conversation.
Recruitment should never begin with a job description. It should begin with a deep understanding of where the organisation is trying to go and whether its leadership capability is aligned with that ambition. Without that context, even exceptional executives can struggle because they’re being asked to solve the wrong problems.
I’ve seen highly respected leaders fail in businesses that weren’t ready for them. Equally, I’ve seen relatively unknown individuals transform organisations because their strengths matched precisely what the business needed at that moment in time. The lesson wasn’t about recruitment. It was about judgement.
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape every industry, conversations about the future of executive hiring have become increasingly polarised. Some believe technology will eventually replace much of the judgement traditionally associated with leadership appointments. I suspect the opposite may prove true.
AI will undoubtedly improve research, analysis and efficiency. It will help us access information faster than ever before. Those are all significant advances.
But leadership has never suffered from a shortage of information.
It has always suffered from a shortage of judgement.
The most important decisions in business are rarely made with complete certainty. They’re made when the information is incomplete, the stakes are high and the consequences are significant. Technology can improve the quality of the information available, but it cannot remove the responsibility of deciding what to do next.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve become increasingly convinced that judgement will become one of the most valuable commercial assets any leadership team possesses.
When I reflect on the businesses that have genuinely impressed me over the last two decades, I don’t remember them because they had perfect strategies. I remember them because they were willing to make difficult leadership decisions before circumstances made those decisions for them. They recognised that leadership isn’t another function within the organisation. It’s the force that shapes every other function.
Eventually, I realised there was one sentence that captured almost everything I’d observed.
Businesses rarely outperform the quality of their leadership decisions.
Everything else, from strategy and culture to growth and execution, is influenced by that single idea.
It’s a belief that continues to shape my own thinking and one I’ll return to often, because I suspect the organisations that thrive over the next decade won’t necessarily be those with access to the best technology or the biggest budgets.
They’ll be the ones that consistently make better leadership decisions than everyone else.