Strategy as an antidote to subjectivity

Leaders who lean towards people-pleasing often spend far more time discussing strategic choices than they realise. That might not feel like a problem in the moment; it might even feel good. Conversations stay open, everyone feels heard, and decisions move forward without friction or confrontation. On the surface, this can look like healthy collaboration.

The difficulty is that without something objective to lean on, many of those decisions have to be re-won each time they come up. What feels like inclusivity slowly becomes repetition. Energy gets spent revisiting choices rather than building on them.

This is where good strategy quietly earns its keep.

At its most useful, strategy reduces how subjective decisions need to be. It gives people something solid to work from, so not everything has to be negotiated from scratch as circumstances change or new voices enter the room.

Michael Porter described strategy as the discipline of making choices and trade-offs, including deciding what not to do. This is a crucial lesson. Strategy is not a catalogue of ambitions. It is a set of constraints that narrows the field of acceptable decisions.

When those constraints are clear, conversations change. Fewer distracting options reach the table in the first place and some arguments never start. Decisions still involve judgement, but that judgement is anchored to shared choices rather than personal preference or ambition. The work stays more objective, and it moves with less friction.

Research into “simple rules” strategy supports this idea. Kathleen Eisenhardt and Donald Sull found that in fast-moving, uncertain environments, organisations perform better when strategy takes the form of a small number of clear rules that guide day-to-day decisions. Not detailed plans or constant explanation. Just enough structure to shape behaviour when pace and pressure increase.

When strategy is weak, distant or rarely returned to, subjectivity fills the gap instead. Each decision has to be re-won in the room. Urgency, confidence or seniority then begin to dominate. Progress continues, but it takes more energy than it should, and direction starts to drift in ways that only become obvious later.

Cognitive research helps explain why this happens. Under cognitive load and fatigue, people rely more heavily on the easiest available cues. In organisational settings, those cues are rarely strategic. They are social, emotional and hierarchical. Without clear foundations, decision-making defaults to what feels simplest in the moment.

This is why strategy that reads well on paper but is rarely used often causes more harm than good. It creates a sense of alignment without changing how decisions are actually made.

Good strategy proves its worth over time. It continues to guide choices when people are busy, tired and working at speed, because it gives people an objective foundation to work from.