Ambivalent leaders make better decisions than the leaders who are most certain of themselves.

The Best Leaders Aren’t Decisive. 

They’re Ambivalent.

The conventional wisdom is that you want a boss who is decisive and resolute about the path forward. But that has it backward.  The most-effective leaders are those who question themselves. They are, in other words, ambivalent. They feel and exhibit conflicting emotions—and are tolerant of them—and can hold two contradictory thoughts or feelings in their head. Such ambivalence helps in several ways. Internal conflict helps us adapt to complex situations by forcing us to seek out more information and consider alternatives. Managers who don’t see everything as either positive or negative seek out expertise from others, incorporating that knowledge more than less-ambivalent leaders. It makes them more receptive to competing or contradictory evidence than more-decisive leaders.  As a result, ambivalent leaders make better decisions than the leaders who are most certain of themselves.