Here’s one thing I know. You don’t intend to be indecisive. You don’t plan to procrastinate, but you do. It’s like you rely on some non-existent pause button. But life continues on and you get further behind.  You miss deadlines and opportunities because you take your risk aversion to an extreme.

You can’t have all the data you need to ensure that, positively, without a doubt, you will make the right decision. So you have to dial it back a bit and enter the world of risk. I contend you don’t need more information to decide as much as you need to know what drives your indecisiveness. Having coached professionals for decades and understanding human behavior, I’ve narrowed down the primary reasons you are indecisive.

First, it comes from your need to be right, or not to be found wrong. While that trait is what drives you to produce excellent work, it also is the reason you allow things to drag on. You apply a trait that makes you so good to an area that makes you so bad.

Another reason you delay is because you don’t have the confidence you will be able to make it right or recover adequately. Believe me when I tell you that there are precious few instances where your decision cannot be corrected or recovered later.

Finally, you fret over the consequences of a decision. If you decide one way, it will adversely affect something else. This makes some decisions very complicated. I’ve seen some of the most decisive people stutter step when confronted with these dilemmas.

Being decisive is a demonstration of good leadership. You can’t afford to delay decisions and procrastinate. It irritates your colleagues, frustrates your clients and discourages your staff. That’s why one of the significant elements effective leadership is decisiveness.