I once worked for an indecisive leader. We’d tell him what we wanted to do and why; he’d say “Well, let’s think about that.” We’d ask him how we should move on something; he’d say “Let’s think about that.” I figured if I told him I’d won the lottery or had a new baby, he’d say “Let’s think about that.” It was hell.

As leaders we must be decisive. The world moves fast, our competitors move fast, and we can’t fall behind. Our people look to us to give them approval and then trust them. They need us to answer their how-to questions…now. We can’t be a bottleneck.

When we’re leading a change, though, things are different.

After a quarter century studying scores of companies going through change and looking at pattern differences between those organizations that succeeded at change vs those that failed, I found a surprising pattern at the successful organizations: They didn’t decide what the change would be as fast as at the failed companies (a.k.a. the “normal” companies).

It’s not that the successful leaders were indecisive; they just took the time to gain alignment among their people, learning from their people by asking for and getting ideas—ideas that were often better than the leaders’ own ideas because their people were better informed about how things actually worked each day. This way, the change—with its better grounding—became everyone’s idea.

Once the successful organization launched a change—often months after the “normal” companies—any snags were more likely to be addressed with team-ship. The normal thinking was: “Well, it was ‘our’ idea, so we HAVE to make it work.”

The usual pattern at the “normal” companies was a quick decision (decisiveness from leadership) and communication of the change. When normal companies hit snags, it often resulted in finger pointing. “Another awful idea from Jim. Shhhhh…it’s going nowhere.” The change was dead, even if the leaders had no idea yet.

So, yes, action is critical in our everyday. But during change, it’s alignment before action. Quick, uninformed decisions and misalignment…it can backfire on us.

It turns out, decisiveness has its downsides.