A monthly letter from D.A. Abrams on leadership, growth, and building organizations that last.
This Month's Theme: Deciding Under Fog
Dear Reader,
Every leader I admire has told me some version of the same story: the most consequential decisions of their career were made with incomplete information. Not reckless guesses—careful judgments made under fog, where waiting for perfect clarity would have been more dangerous than acting without it.
I have watched executives paralyze their organizations by insisting on certainty before moving. I have watched others destroy value by confusing speed with decisiveness. The skill that separates the best leaders from both traps is something I call “calibrated conviction”—the ability to commit fully to a direction while remaining genuinely open to new information that should change it.
This month, I want to share three principles that make this possible.
1. Separate Reversible from Irreversible Decisions
Not every decision deserves the same process. Reversible decisions—pricing experiments, meeting formats, pilot programs—should be made quickly. The cost of delay exceeds the cost of being wrong, because you can course-correct. Irreversible decisions—mergers, leadership hires, market exits—deserve more deliberation, more input, and more structured analysis.
Most leaders apply the same cautious process to both. The result: slow organizations that exhaust their energy on decisions that do not matter.
2. Define What Would Change Your Mind
Before you commit to a direction, articulate what evidence would cause you to reverse course. This is not weakness—it is discipline. Leaders who define their exit criteria in advance are far more likely to recognize signals early and adapt, rather than doubling down on a failing strategy to protect their ego.
3. Act, Then Learn
In uncertain environments, action produces information that analysis alone cannot. Small, deliberate experiments reveal truths that no amount of whiteboard strategy can surface. The leaders who thrive in ambiguity are not the ones who guess correctly—they are the ones who learn fastest.
From the Blog
This month's featured posts explore themes of engagement, personal foundations, and values-driven goal setting:
- Engagement: The Metric Every Leader Should Obsess Over — Why discretionary effort is the real driver of organizational performance, and the leadership behaviors that unlock it.
- The Six Pillars of a Strong Personal Foundation — Before you can lead others effectively, your own foundation has to be solid. A framework for building yours.
- Why SMART Goals Without Values Produce Wrong Results — Goals are powerful tools. Without values to guide them, they can drive you efficiently in the wrong direction.
A Question Worth Sitting With
"What decision am I delaying right now that a future version of me will wish I had made sooner?"
In my experience, the decisions we postpone are rarely the ones where more data would actually help. More often, we know what we need to do—we are simply uncomfortable doing it. The discomfort is information. It usually means the decision matters.
What I'm Reading
This month I have been rereading sections of New-School Leadership on adaptive leadership and decision-making under pressure. If you manage a team navigating change—and who doesn't—the chapters on leading through ambiguity are worth your time. Browse the full collection on Amazon.
Coming Up
Next month, we will explore the platinum rule and why treating others the way they want to be treated changes every relationship in your professional life. I will also share a practical framework for building a personal advisory group.
If navigating uncertainty is a persistent challenge for your leadership team, explore our online courses for structured development, or schedule an advisory session for personalized guidance.
Until next month,
D.A. Abrams