Lessons from the Field #23 — You Won’t Always Have Enough Information

shantel kent

Sep 20

2 min read

Early in my leadership career, I thought good decisions came from having all the facts.

Gather the information.

Look at the numbers.

Understand the problem.

Then make the call.

It sounds simple.

Until you lead long enough to realize that sometimes all the information never comes.

The numbers tell part of the story.

Two people you trust see the situation completely differently.

There are risks on both sides.

And while you’re still trying to understand every variable, the clock keeps moving.

Eventually, everyone looks at you.

What are we going to do?

I’ve learned that leadership isn’t about eliminating uncertainty before making a decision.

Sometimes, you have to move through it.

Listen.

Ask questions.

Challenge your own assumptions.

Gather the best information available.

Understand the risk.

And then make the call.

That doesn’t mean making reckless decisions or ignoring the data.

It means recognizing when gathering more information is helping you make a better decision — and when it has become a way to avoid making one.

There’s another part of this lesson that took me longer to learn:

Making the decision isn’t the end of the responsibility.

You have to own what happens next.

If it works, learn from it.

If new information changes the picture, adjust.

And if you got it wrong?

Say so.

Course-correct.

Move forward.

There is strength in making a difficult decision.

But there is just as much strength in having the humility to change it when the facts tell you something different.

The higher you lead, the fewer decisions come with perfect information, obvious answers, or guaranteed outcomes.

That’s where judgment matters.

Leadership isn’t having enough information to eliminate uncertainty.

It’s having enough judgment to move through it — and enough humility to adjust when you learn something new.

That’s today’s lesson from the field.

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