- jeff wells
- Mar 21
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 23
What Is the Primary Role of a Leader?
This question seems simple, yet its answer has the power to transform organizations and accelerate careers.
Many leaders—myself included—initially overcomplicate it, focusing on traits, skills, or leadership philosophies rather than the core responsibility that defines leadership itself.
A Lesson in Simplicity
Early in my career, I had the opportunity to learn from Steve Bennett, former CEO of Symantec and Intuit, who spent 23 years as a direct report to Jack Welch.
During one of our conversations, he asked me:
“What is the primary role of a leader?”
Thinking I had the perfect response, I launched into a detailed explanation—covering everything from vision and communication to motivation and strategy.
I believed I had delivered an insightful answer. But I quickly realized I had missed the point.
Bennett listened patiently and then replied:
“That’s a good answer, but not the right answer. I didn’t ask what makes a good leader—I asked about the primary role of a leader.”
Then, he shared a lesson that forever changed my perspective:
“The primary role of a leader is to make great decisions and teach others how to make great decisions.”
Leadership Is Decision-Making at Scale
When we break this idea down, its implications are undeniable:
Leaders who make great decisions consistently produce superior outcomes.
Teams that make great decisions consistently drive success at scale.
At its core, leadership is about decision-making—the choices we make shape business strategy, culture, and results.
But that leads to another critical question:
Why Do Leaders Make Bad Decisions?
After years of working with executive teams, the answer became clear:
Leaders make bad decisions when they lack context.
It’s not a lack of intelligence, expertise, or good intentions that causes poor decisions.It’s a lack of context—the deep understanding of people, systems, timing, and nuance that’s required to make high-quality calls.
The Context Gap in Leadership
We’ve all seen it happen:
A senior leader makes a decision that seems logical at the top—but the frontline team immediately recognizes it won’t work.
It’s not because the leader isn’t capable. It’s because they’re disconnected from the detail that matters.
Without structured ways to capture and process real-time, relevant input, even the most experienced leaders risk making decisions that are disconnected or misaligned.
The Solution: Build Context Loops
The key to consistent, high-quality decision-making is systematically capturing context at scale.
We call these Context Loops—structured feedback systems designed to close the gap between decision-makers and real-world insights.
They ensure leaders always operate with the best available information, leading to more accurate, effective, and high-impact decisions.
Learn how they work: The Power of Context Loops
Where This Fits in the High Achiever Operating System
At High Achiever, we integrate Context Loops into the Sales Operating Cadence—a foundational component of the Revenue Operating System.
This cadence isn’t just about meetings. It’s about building a repeatable rhythm that gives leaders the visibility and context they need to make the right calls—and teach their teams to do the same.
Explore how this works in real organizations: They Hate Your Forecast Reviews (and They Should)
Want to Scale Leadership Effectively?
Most growth stalls not because of a lack of talent—but because decision-making can’t keep up with complexity.
If your company is scaling but your team is still dependent on a handful of executives for all the decisions, you're not building a leadership engine—you're creating a bottleneck.
That's why our Leadership Development Experience focuses not just on individual growth, but on building systems of decision-making at scale.
Bonus Resource: Unlock Scalable Decision Velocity
Download our guide: The Secret to Scaling: Turn Your Go-To-Market Team Into a Revenue Generating Machine
Inside, you'll learn why decision velocity—not just clarity—is the missing ingredient in most scaling companies.
