Ben Horowitz suggests a leader's primary role in decision-making is often to provide clarity, which unblocks the team and allows them to move forward. The organization needs a clear direction more than a perfect answer. This is achieved by staying in the details and being accessible, not by dictating every solution.
Related Insights
The best leaders act on incomplete information, understanding that 100% certainty is a myth that only exists in hindsight. The inability to decide amid ambiguity—choosing inaction—is a greater failure than making the wrong call.
A leader's value isn't being the expert in every marketing function. It's identifying a critical problem, even one they don't fully understand, and taking ownership to push it forward. This often means acting as a project manager: booking the meeting, getting the right people in the room, and driving action items.
Instead of solving problems brought by their team, effective leaders empower them by shifting ownership. After listening to an issue, the immediate next step is to ask the team to propose a viable solution. This builds their problem-solving and decision-making capabilities.
When a team is struggling, a micromanager gives the answer. An effective hands-on leader resists making the decision. Instead, they intervene to teach the team the correct *method* for arriving at the decision, thereby improving the organization's long-term capabilities.
In fast-growing, chaotic companies, leaders often feel pressured to have all the answers. This is a trap. Your real job is not to know everything, but to be skilled at finding answers by bringing the right people together. Saying 'I don't know, let's figure it out' is a sign of strength, not weakness.
A common leadership trap is feeling the need to be the smartest person with all the answers. The more leveraged skill is ensuring the organization focuses on solving the right problem. As Einstein noted, defining the question correctly is the majority of the work toward the solution.
Many leaders, particularly in technical fields, mistakenly believe their role is to provide all the answers. This approach disempowers teams and creates a bottleneck. Shifting from advising to coaching unlocks a team's problem-solving potential and allows leaders to scale their impact.
A coaching-based leadership style is valuable for engagement but can fail in ambiguity. When a team struggles to find a "red thread" connecting their work, the leader must switch from asking questions to providing a clear, assertive frame and setting direction.
Many leaders focus on having the correct analysis. However, true leadership requires understanding that being right is useless if you can't persuade and influence others. The most successful leaders shift their focus from proving their correctness to finding the most effective way to communicate and achieve their goals.
The solution to organizational dysfunction is often simplification, not addition. Like a heart ablation that burns away extra electrical pathways to create a clear signal, leaders must remove confusion, redundant processes, and conflicting priorities to let talent and energy flow effectively.
