Waiting

The Leadership Skill No One Talks About

Most leaders are not rewarded for restraint. They are rewarded for speed. Decisions made fast. Problems solved early. Action taken visibly. That is what leadership tends to look like from the outside, someone who knows what to do and moves quickly.

But some of the best decisions I have seen leaders make were actually decisions not to act. Not yet.

Falkland’s Law puts it plainly:
“If it isn’t necessary to decide, it is necessary not to decide.”

There is a quiet kind of intelligence in that. One that does not get much airtime in corporate culture or startup hustle posts. Waiting does not make headlines. Patience does not look impressive. But both can save you from self-inflicted wounds.

I once worked with a founder who had a rule: never make a big decision on the same day you feel compelled to make it. “If it can wait 24 hours, it should,” he said. Not out of laziness, but because he had learned that urgency has a way of distorting priorities. He wanted to give reality time to settle.

And it worked. When others would spiral into action after a disappointing metric or a tense team meeting, he would pause. Listen. Ask for a little more data. Give people time to cool off. Let the picture sharpen before picking a direction.

It was not indecisiveness. It was timing.

Waiting is not about doing nothing. It is about doing something else while you wait. Observing. Noticing. Gathering signals. Giving people a chance to self-correct. Letting emotion pass so you can hear what is actually being said.

But here is the catch: it takes more confidence to wait than to act. More security. More tolerance for discomfort. Because when you wait, you invite ambiguity to stick around a little longer, and most people will do anything to get rid of ambiguity.

Especially in leadership.

So much of modern work is driven by the need to look decisive, even when there is no clarity to be had yet. We mistake early moves for strong leadership. We confuse action with progress.

But restraint is a skill too. One worth practicing. Especially in high-stakes environments where each choice compounds.

Falkland’s Law reminds us:
If you do not have to decide yet, do not.

Because the best decisions often come after the initial urgency fades. After the fear settles. After more information surfaces. After you have listened instead of reacted.

And when you are leading, that kind of timing can make all the difference.