Why Good Leaders Double Down on Bad Decisions

The role of ego and how to stop the slow bleed before it costs your credibility

We all make poor decisions. Eighties fashion is a harmless reminder. It felt right at the time, yet very few of us stayed loyal to hyper colour T-shirts, parachute pants and oversized hair. Most poor choices are forgivable when the consequences show up quickly, do little damage and we move on with a bit of humility. In life, and especially in leadership, it rarely unfolds that neatly.

Leadership decisions have a habit of lingering, and it is usually the poor ones that stay with us. They carry a cost that compounds quietly over time. Left unchecked, they chip away at credibility and, in some cases, careers.

The uncomfortable truth is that we often know when something is not working. The data points are there. The signals are clear. Yet we persist. Not because it is the right call, but because changing direction would force us to confront the time, money and effort already invested.

This is what management thinkers call escalation of commitment. In simple terms, it is throwing good money after bad in the hope of recovering what has already been spent. It feels rational in the moment. It rarely stands up to scrutiny later, and more often than not, it ends badly. While this behaviour is often explained as a response to sunk costs, there is something more personal driving it.

Pride.

It is uncomfortable to admit we got it wrong, and our ego does everything it can to protect us from that moment. In professional settings, where reputation matters, that instinct only intensifies. So we hold the line. We defend the decision. We double down. In doing so, we quietly trade away time, money, energy and, at times, the trust of those around us.

Pride has a way of disguising itself as persistence. They are not the same.

Strip ego out of the equation and the path forward becomes much clearer. In practice, people tend to respect leaders who can acknowledge a misstep and correct it far more than those who stubbornly push on. Owning a poor decision does not weaken credibility. It strengthens it.

So what does that actually look like?

Sometimes it means reversing the decision entirely. Sometimes it means narrowing the scope to contain the downside. Other times it means taking deliberate steps to mitigate the impact. None of these options are perfect, but each is far better than continuing down a path we already know is flawed, simply to protect our pride. Our egos are more resilient than we give them credit for.

We all have ego and diversity lies only in how much of a voice we allow it in making decisions. We all make mistakes. That is not the issue. The real question is what happens next.

When ego takes control, we extend the life of bad decisions and amplify their cost. When we set it aside, we give ourselves a chance to course correct early and limit the damage, both in real terms and in the eyes of those we lead.

There is an old idea that pride comes before a fall. In leadership, the fall is not always avoidable. What we can control is how far we fall and how much damage we allow along the way. That comes down to one simple thing…

…how quickly we are willing to admit we were wrong and do something about it.