For those who’ve seen Band of Brothers, there’s a very telling conversation between Carville and Winters, as the sergeant complains about his platoon commander, Lt. Dyke:
“It’s not that he makes bad decisions; it’s that he doesn’t make any decisions at all.”
Any time you see that situation in a manager, any manager, it is a flashing neon sign of incompetence.
One of the reasons why Marxists make such poor managers is that if they are presented with a situation which cannot be addressed by Party doctrine, they are largely indecisive. Even worse, if that doctrine runs counter to good management, they will use that as the underpinning for their indecisiveness. We saw this a lot under Obama, who was pathetically underqualified as a manager, having had no executive experience in his entire life before becoming POTUS. More often than not, when faced with a decision, he simply froze and allowed events to dictate the outcome, even if that outcome was inimical to the interests of the country he was supposed to be governing. (And to prove my point above, his Marxist doctrine held that the United States was a malignant force in world affairs, so allowing harm to befall the country was — to his mind — actually the proper thing to do as it “corrected” or atoned for America’s past sins.)
Kim du Toit, “Failure”, Splendid Isolation, 2020-06-04.
September 17, 2025
QotD: Indecision
Filed under: Government, History, Military, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: BarackObama, Leadership, Management, TV — Nicholas @ 01:00
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A leader makes decisions, in a timely manner. A bad leader makes the wrong decisions. A good leader makes the right ones, at least often enough to not be destroyed by the bad ones that anyone can make. A manager who doesn’t make decisions, or doesn’t do so in a timely manner, is not a leader.
Comment by Michael D Houst — September 17, 2025 @ 11:01
Leadership by most definitions requires decisions. Management often does not … achieving “consensus” seems to be the preferred style for middle managers.
Comment by Nicholas — September 18, 2025 @ 15:45
[…] SO MUCH THIS: One of the reasons why Marxists make such poor managers is that if they are presented with a situati… […]
Pingback by Instapundit » Blog Archive » SO MUCH THIS: One of the reasons why Marxists make such poor managers is that if they are presente — September 18, 2025 @ 02:32
My father learned decision-making in the infantry back in the day. He said: “sometimes you’ve got only ten percent of the information you think you need to make a decision, but that’s all you’re going to get. Time’s up. Make a decision”.
Comment by Bruce Chitiea — September 18, 2025 @ 02:47
I was never an officer, but I do recall being quite shocked on my army reserve Junior NCO course who was able to make decisions (even wrong ones) in a timely manner. Juniors that I thought would ace the course ended up looking utterly lost when they had to make a call, while others I’d considered unlikely leaders turned out to be pretty good on the decisiveness. You can’t tell in advance how someone will or won’t handle being “the man on the spot”.
Comment by Nicholas — September 18, 2025 @ 15:43