Speed is an underrated leadership quality.
It’s well known that a key differentiator, all things being equal, is speed. The pace of a business can propel it forward and past the rest of the market.
What I don’t hear talked about much is how speed can be a differentiator at the leadership level.
All the best leaders I worked for / with worked with pace. They responded quickly. They made decisions quickly. They communicated quickly (direct and concise). They accumulated information quickly. They synthesized information quickly. They kept pushing forward in the midst of uncertainty, as nothing is ever certain.
Early leaders often don’t want to make mistakes, so they get stuck in indecision waiting for “all” the information (this happened to me in my first VP role). They lose days, weeks, months and it compounds.
I like to use the phrase directionally accurate. Do we have enough information to be directionally accurate? Yes, make the decision. No, get more information.
The best leaders I know make more decisions on a count basis than those that want everything to be perfect, and that shows up with better / quicker results.
This is one reason seasoned leaders appear to be able to get so much done. They have a larger library of historical references to pull from, they can pattern spot and then decide. What that looks like is speed.
The more seasoned you get, the faster you should be able to make decisions. But other parts of speed like response time and concise communication, are things anyone can do to push their own internal pace.