Complete Story
06/30/2025
When Doing Nothing is the Smart Move
At times, there are virtues to waiting before taking action
Patience is a virtue. Yet fortune favors the bold. In this battle of the leadership cliches, which adage is correct?
The answer, of course, is "it depends." Leaders are defined by taking effective, meaningful actions. But that means leaders can privilege unnecessary action for the sake of avoiding the kind criticism for inaction that associations often receive (see: slow-moving ships).
So as a guide for figuring out when it’s okay to sit tight, a recent piece by a group of business scholars in the MIT Sloan Management Review offers some helpful assistance. In “When Wait and See Is a Smart Strategy,” the authors spotlight this particularly complicated moment—are tariffs coming or not? are grants being funded or not?—and advises leaders to slow down. Though they recognize the virtues of taking action, they note that "wait and see can also be a smart strategy for delaying commitments while observing an evolving situation."
Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.