The document discusses habits of indecisive leaders and how to address indecisiveness. It identifies three common traits of indecisive leaders: creating diversions to avoid addressing issues, accommodating others to be liked rather than making tough decisions, and procrastinating by claiming a need for more information. The document provides strategies for dealing with each trait, such as staying focused on facts, developing action plans, and making small initial decisions to build confidence. It emphasizes the importance of decisive leadership and offers tips to support transforming indecisive leaders into decisive ones through open discussion and encouragement.

1. 3 Habits of Indecisive Leaders
Rex Gatto Ph.D., BCC
What is an Indecisive Leader? What do leaders do that make them indecisive? Do indecisive
leaders know they are indecisive or is it their style of leading? Indecisiveness is the inability or
reluctance to make decisions in general or to come to a decision about something in particular
thereby producing no clear results. What causes a leader to be indecisive, not wanting to make a
decisive choice? Most likely it is the conscious or unconscious ideation that by not making a
definitive choice, the leader cannot be ridiculed for a decision, moving in a given direction, and
or for the consequences of decisive action.
A decisive leader would choose a direction, communicate that direction, and support and
motivate people to achieve a result. The Indecisive Leader does not feel obliged to choose, take a
risk, or motivate followers to adopt a certain direction and therefore assumes no responsibility
for whatever the outcome may be.
The Indecisive Leader is a master at deflection, play it safe, and utilizes the wait and see attitude
under the guise of collecting input. Indecisive Leaders will make predictions, state that they will
let you know next week, and create a pattern of no action through suggested actions that really
never materialize. The outcome of this is disgruntled followers who eventually abandon their
loyalty to the leader and leave (mentally or physically). The Indecisive Leader has a series of
smoke and mirror statements that are half-truths and predictions. What never materializes is clear
and decisive action. The smoke and mirrors can be a series of actions that lead to nothing but
wasted time.
What blocks a leader from taking decisive action?

2. The leader may lack confidence and or competence to take action, want to be liked, protect self,
not want to offend, want everything to be perfect before taking action, and may not understand or
have clarity around the issues, problems, strategy or goal that needs to be addressed.
The internal mental process that occurs when a leader is about to make a decision begins with an
external event or situation (business circumstance) followed by thoughts regarding that
situation. That in turn creates a mental process to take or not take action: i.e. be indecisive or
decisive. This is followed by responses that demonstrate leadership behaviors of action or no
action. Accompanying the action are emotions (excited, frustrated, or angry) and physical
responses (strength, churning stomach, muscular tension, or exhaustion). These three parts:
event/situation, thoughts, and behaviors/action comprise a psychological process for all
leaders:
· The situation/event (what has occurred, what has led up to this situation)
· Thoughts, personality, and reflections (emotions or feelings as to what is occurring now)
· Actions or non-action (confidence) the leader chooses to take
Outcomes or results the leader achieves may reinforce the leader’s confidence to take action or
not take action in the future. See the model below:
This Internal Mental Process creates the challenges and successes that arise for every
leader. Think of the catastrophic events that have confronted leaders over the last twenty years.
The attack on the Trade Center Twin Towers, earthquake in Haiti, hurricanes Katrina, Harvey
and Irma and technology and global changes: all situations that created challenging
situations/events that led to the leader’s thoughts and reflections. These events caused leaders to
take action (decisive) or not take action (indecisive). Communication is not a substitute for
leadership, nor does an expressed opinion equal leadership: opinions are merely statements based
on assumptions or beliefs (thoughts), which do not address issues through action.
Communication without action is simply empty thought.
The event that causes a leader to generate thoughts/reflections leads to a choice the leader makes
as to whether to be decisive or indecisive. Through the leaders’ Internal Mental Process
(reflections), personality, knowledge, ability, skills, compassion, attitude, collected input from
others, and level of confidence combine to support the leader being decisive or indecisive.
Indecision is not the act of doing nothing, rather, it is a choice to not take action.
Thoughts are in fact, a mental filtering system, which has developed through life experiences,
which are the basis for decision and indecision. By personality, there are people who see

3. situations in black and white terms and can quickly and decisively act. There are those
conceptual and intuitive leaders who play what if possibilities in their mind and sort through the
hypothetical situations and come to a decision. Sometimes, however, these “what ifs” can freeze
intelligence and experience, and indecision emerges. There are those leaders who simply want to
be liked and try to accommodate followers and bosses, driven to please everyone and end up
pleasing no one.
The three main reasons some leaders employ indecision:
1. Diversion: Get followers to think about anything other than the event/situation - issue (keep
people off balance)
2. Accommodation: Get people to like you through the actions taken or not taken which will
support them liking the leader
3. Procrastination: an inability to make a decision without 100% information or unwilling to
make an imperfect decision or take action
Indecision Trait #1 Create a Diversion
The leader creates a diversion so followers will think the organization is terrific. This leader
proffers the illusion that all is fine and great. The leader is personable but basically does very
little. When a crisis arises, this leader deflects and causes chaos in unrelated areas, keeping
people off balance. An example would be the loss of a major client, which is devastating to the
organization. Instead of taking quick and decisive action to address the situation, the Indecisive
Leader creates a diversion on an unrelated issue such as issuing a memo on last year’s bonuses.
The leader redirects everyone’s attention and gets people talking about what was wrong with the
bonus program instead of addressing the major issues at hand. This indecisive action leads to
executives having discussions about the bonus program and not addressing the major issue, the
loss of the biggest client. Why would this occur? The leader does not know how or what to do,
does not know how to motivate the employees to acquire another major client, does not want to
admit the loss of a major client under his/her watch, or simply ego gets in the way. When
confronted with the problem of the loss of the major client these types of leaders say they have a
plan, it is great, and they will give out the details next Wednesday. Wednesday comes and goes
and there is no plan (more indecision). Finally, when confronted with the loss of major client, the
Indecisive Leaders indicate that “it is really, really difficult and they are working on it”. The next
thing that occurs is the VP of sales has announced his resignation even though everyone knows
he was not the reason for the loss of the client. What leadership action was taken to address the
issue of the loss of a major client? Absolutely none, but now, the attention is on replacing the
VP. The lack of decisiveness was, in fact, an exploration and misdirection of facts and followers.
Indecision Trait #2: Accommodation
These leaders above all else need to be liked. They interact with the employees, endeavor to be
friends, and try please everyone so no one is angry or agitated. The Indecisive Leader uses the
personal appeal of affiliation to reassure employees that there are no problems and that everyone

4. can work on this together. They usually are pleasant and supportive of others on their team and
by not making a decision they will not offend or make a mistake. The accommodator does not
want to make a decision, fearing it could be the wrong decision and people could become upset.
Ultimately, the indecisiveness results from the leaders’ and personal need for approval and
acceptance.
“Indecisiveness and delays are the parents of failure” G. Canning 1827 (British Statesman and
Prime Minister)
Trait #3: Indecisive Procrastinator
These leaders avoid making a decision or taking action. If the decision is not flawless or 100%
accurate, they assume it must be implausible. The Indecisive Leaders determine they don’t have
enough information to make a decision, or the information they have is unsound, that they need
to collect more info or input from customers and employees, or that time is not a factor. The best
way for a leader to shift to Indecision is to disregard time as a vital part of the decision-making
equation. The indecision is disguised through postponing taking action right now. This leader
probably was rewarded for not stepping on toes, not making hasty decisions, and being a glad
hander at some point in the past.
Transforming an Indecisive Leader
There are some specific steps that can be taken to transform the Indecisive Leader to Decisive
Leader. However, there is something crucial to remember here: while you are describing
someone as indecisive, that same person may be doing the same about you. The less we know
about someone, the more we are apt to describe that person’s behavior as “troubling.” Thus, we
need to first do the following:
· Assess the situation (business circumstance)
· Try to think of why the person would be indecisive or decisive
· Separate you and the person from the decision
· Develop a plan to work with the person
· Implement the plan
· Assess the plan through implementation, is the Indecisive Leader is changing
Indecisive Leaders waste a considerable amount of time and money, which affects people’s lives.
If you encounter an Indecisive Leaders, and want to support that person to be a more productive,
decisive leader, there are some steps that can be taken to ensure that the leader is able to produce
the right decisive action.
Understanding the Indecisive Leader:

5. · Has this person acted the same or differently in similar situations?
· What is the person’s usual behavior?
· Am I reacting out of proportion to the situation?
· Are my responses excessive?
· Is there a particular incident that triggered the indecisive behavior?
· Will direct, open discussion help alleviate the indecision?
· How can I help?
Strategy to work with the Diversion tactic
· Stay focused on the facts
· Develop a plan to address the issues with benefits to the organization, employees, and
customers
· Focus on the competition and customer demands which will lead to changes that the
organization needs to take
Strategy to work with the Accommodator tactic
· Ask questions to bring out underlying facts
· Focus on next step actions
· Let the leaders know their ideas are valued and others would appreciate knowing their
thoughts and actions that will lead to key results
· Discuss the working relationship and what people want from their leaders
· Be ready to step in to help resolve the issues and address the problem through action
Strategy to work with the Procrastinator tactic
· Help the leaders make that first major decision so their brains begin to formulate what it is
like to make a decision (support)
· Get the issues out on the table
· Present a step-by-step approach based on the situation and to support making of a decision
and focus on potential results

6. · Listen for: the focus of their attention, evasion of taking action, and focus on successful
outcomes
Summary: You can support an Indecisive Leader to become decisive through your
encouragement if that leader wants to grow as a leader. Do not give up on Indecisive Leaders:
this may be part of their development in which you can play an important role.
Rex Gatto Ph.D., BCC
President
Gatto Associates LLC.
412 344-2277 (Office)
www.rexgatto.com
rex@rexgatto.com