- Dan McKee
- May 13
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 23
Leadership isn’t a mystery. It’s a discipline.
Ask 10 executives what the primary role of a leader is, and you’ll get 10 different answers:
“Set the vision.”
“Motivate the team.”
“Drive results.”
+6 more just like it.
All good answers—but not the game-changing one we were looking for.
Steve Bennett, former CEO of Symantec and Intuit and a longtime direct report to Jack Welch, gave us the first principle that underpins the entire High Achiever approach:
“The primary role of a leader is to make great decisions—and to teach others how to make great decisions.”
Simple. Powerful. And transformative.
Great Decisions Drive Great Outcomes
“Show me a leader who makes good decisions and I’ll show you a leader who produces good outcomes.”“Show me a team that makes good decisions, and I’ll show you a team that produces great outcomes at scale.”— Steve Bennett
It’s not just philosophy. It’s a framework for leadership execution.
Why Decision-Making Is the #1 Job of a Leader
There’s a direct link between decisions and results:
Who gets hired
What gets prioritized
Where resources flow
How culture evolves
If you want better outcomes, you need a better decision-making system.
Poor decisions—especially from the top—ripple through an entire company. They destroy focus, erode trust, and cost you momentum.
Why Smart Leaders Make Bad Decisions
It’s not because they lack intelligence or experience.
It’s because they lack context.
As leaders rise in the org, they get further from the front lines. They start operating on soundbites and summaries instead of deep insight. Over time, the quality of their inputs degrades—and so does the quality of their decisions.
It’s a corporate game of telephone. And it breaks things.
Bad decisions often:
Look great on a slide deck but fall flat in execution
Spark unintended consequences
Ignore operational realities
Create team frustration and disengagement
Undermine confidence in leadership
Unreliable context = unreliable leadership.
How to Close the Context Gap
The solution isn't micromanagement or omnipresence. It’s building systems that bring context to you. That’s where Context Loops come in.
A Context Loop is a systematized way to gather and refine frontline insights so leaders can make high-quality decisions at scale. Learn more: The Power of Context Loops
Context Loops are embedded within your Sales Operating Cadence—the drumbeat that drives consistency, visibility, and strategic rhythm.
We teach leaders how to build these systems in our 90-Day Leadership Development Experience, using frameworks that unlock repeatable, strategic decision-making.
The Two-Part Job: Decide Well + Teach Decision-Making
Most leaders know it’s their job to decide.Very few know how to teach decision-making.That’s where leverage lives.
When you teach your team how to think—not what to do—you unlock:
Speed
Accountability
Autonomy
Clarity
Scalability
Jack Welch, one of the most effective CEOs in history, spent one week every month teaching. Not managing. Teaching.
You can’t scale intuition. But you can scale first-principle frameworks.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
Imagine you’re the COO of a company growing from $10M to $100M.
At $10M, you’re in every major decision. At $50M, your calendar is fragmented, your team is scaling fast, and the business is more complex than ever.
If you haven’t taught your leaders how to make decisions, you become the bottleneck.
But if you’ve taught decision-making frameworks?
They can think independently
They can defend their choices
They can move fast without breaking things
You unlock sustainable growth
That’s the shift from decision-maker to decision architect.
How to Operationalize Great Decision-Making
This isn’t about being a genius.
It’s about building systems that make decision-making a repeatable discipline.
You need:
A context loop system to gather insight
A decision-making framework to guide action
A cadence to drive measured outcomes
Learn more in our 3-part series:
Part 1: Strategic Decision Making Overview
Part 2: Environmental Scan (coming soon)
Part 3: Guidepost Questions (coming soon)
Why This Is the Cornerstone of High Achievement
Every major leadership breakdown we’ve seen traces back to one of two things:
Poor decisions
No team of leaders who can decide well
Want to scale? You need:
You, consistently making high-quality decisions
A team that can do the same—without you in the room
This is the heart of leadership.
This is what makes High Achievers different.
Want a Team That Can Think, Decide, and Win?
Most companies have good executors but few true decision-makers. That’s the real bottleneck.
Our Leadership Development Experience installs the mindsets, models, and systems your team needs to:
Navigate ambiguity
Transfer decision power without chaos
Create scalable clarity
Move faster with confidence
Bonus Resource: Download “The Secret to Scaling” to discover why most growth stalls at the middle—where decision-making breaks down.
More From High Achiever
The Process of Decision Making: How High Achievers Make Great Decisions
