The Groundwork
Most decisions don’t feel difficult until they are urgent.
By then, most of the work should have been done - that’s what most leaders underestimate. Decisions aren’t - or shouldn’t be - made in the moment but built long before it.
Leadership shows up before anything feels urgent - when no one is watching and the pressure hasn’t arrived yet. That’s where the outcome is already being shaped.
Most leaders don’t fail in the moment of decision.
They get caught out by the groundwork that never happened.
What it looks like on the flight deck
Long before we push back from the gate, the work has begun.
The weather has been checked, fuel planned, alternates identified, aircraft inspected, crew briefed, roles assigned, risks named out loud. Plan A, Plan B, Plan C - all considered before a single passenger has fastened their seatbelt.
By the time we are accelerating down the runway, most of the decision-making is already done.
If you’re not feeling this, it might be because the groundwork hasn’t been done. We felt it because we had prepared properly, not because we had guessed right. When the groundwork was solid, decisions in the air were clear. When it wasn’t, everything became harder - and the margin for error was smaller.
That’s not unique to aviation. It’s how good decisions work everywhere.
Built, not made
There’s a stubborn myth in leadership: that the best decision-makers are the ones who think fastest under pressure.
Some decisions are made that way, but most aren’t.
Most good decisions are built long before anyone realises a decision is coming. They come from conversations had early rather than avoided. From questions asked before things get urgent. From defining what success looks like - before the pressure arrives.
The decision itself is often just the final step.
If you want better decisions, don’t focus on the moment of choice.
Focus on the groundwork that comes before it.
What gets skipped
This is exactly what most organisations miss, and exactly where things start to drift
They invest in strategy. In decision-making frameworks. In leadership development, but far less in the questions that actually make those things work:
What problem are we really trying to solve?
What are we assuming that might not be true?
What could go wrong — and have we said it out loud?
Who needs to be in this conversation before we’re forced to move?
What does “good” actually look like here?
These questions can feel slow. Like they’re holding things up.
They’re not.
Skipping them doesn’t save time. It just moves the friction later - when the stakes are higher and the options are fewer.
The leaders who seem calmest
The best leaders I’ve worked with are rarely the busiest - they are often the calmest people in the room - not because the pressure is lower, but because the groundwork is done, consistently, before it becomes urgent.
They think ahead, they ask difficult questions early, they create clarity for their teams - not just on what to do, but on why it matters.
So when decisions arrive quickly, no one is waiting to be told what to do.
You can see it in how they operate.
They pause when others rush, they ask where others assume, they don’t get pulled in every direction - because they already know which direction matters.
That’s not personality, it’s practice - and it’s available to anyone willing to do that work.
Dial-Emma: When you’re under pressure to decide
This section will appear in every issue: a real-world situation that comes up again and again, and a way of thinking it through that brings you back to centreline.
Scenario
"I feel like I’m constantly reacting. Every week it’s a new fire, a new decision landing on my desk. How do I get ahead of it?"
I hear this constantly. And it’s rarely a decision-making problem.
It’s a groundwork problem.
When leaders are permanently reactive, it usually means the thinking that should have happened earlier didn’t. Not through laziness - through busyness. The diary was full, the pace was fast, there was no time to stop and think: Until there was no choice.
Start by seeing the whole picture, finding whats missing, and building the edges first
Here’s where to start:
See what’s coming. Identify three to five decisions likely to land in the next three to six months. Not to solve them - just to see them coming.
Find what you’re missing. What information would make each decision easier? Who has it? When do you need it?
Involve people earlier than feels necessary. The people affected by a decision rarely make it worse when consulted early. They almost always make it better.
Define what “good” looks like. If you can’t answer that calmly now, you won’t answer it clearly under pressure.
Leadership isn’t just about making decisions well.
It’s about preparing for them well - so that when the moment arrives, the answer has somewhere solid to land.
This is exactly the work I do with leadership teams - not just in theory but applied to the decisions they are facing right now.
A final thought
In aviation, there’s a phrase that has stayed with me:
The flight is won or lost on the ground.
Very little goes wrong in the air because of a single bad decision, it goes wrong because of what wasn’t done beforehand.
The conversation not had, the assumption not challenged, the plan that stopped at Plan A.
The groundwork always comes before the decision - whether we do it consciously or not.
The quality of your decisions tomorrow depends on the groundwork you do today - whether you’ve done it or not.
If this resonated, forward it to someone currently operating in reaction mode.
And if you’re sitting with a decision this week that feels harder than it should, ask yourself one question:
What groundwork haven’t I done yet?
I work with leaders and organisations to apply this kind of thinking to live, high-stakes decisions when clarity matters most. If this sounds like something your next event needs lets explore working together.
No pressure or obligation. Just a place to think clearly.