Why Asking for Advice Is Not Always Enough to Make Strategic Decisions

“If you were in my position, what would you do?”

The question sounds simple. Yet it rarely arises in a situation that is.

A leader is hesitating between two directions. They discuss it with a business partner, someone close to them or an industry expert. The answers come quickly: move faster, wait, hire, walk away or negotiate differently. Each person offers a coherent and often relevant opinion, inevitably shaped by their own experience.

The leader walks away with several answers—but not necessarily with greater clarity.

This is one of the distinctive features of strategic decision-making: gathering more advice is not always enough to make a better decision.

Advice answers a question that has already been framed

Asking for advice assumes that you are asking the right question.

Yet in a complex decision, the problem as initially presented is not always the one that truly needs to be addressed.

Should we hire a sales director? This question may conceal another: is the organisation ready to delegate part of its client relationships?

Should we accept this partnership? Behind the opportunity, there may be questions about dependency, governance or strategic alignment.

Should we enter a new market? The real issue may be whether the organisation can sustain its growth without weakening its existing operations.

Even excellent advice generally answers the question it has been given. It does not always help determine whether that question has been framed correctly.

Every piece of advice carries the perspective of the person giving it

No advice is entirely neutral.

An entrepreneur who succeeded by taking risks will probably encourage boldness. Someone who has survived a cash-flow crisis will recommend greater caution. A financial expert will focus on the strength of the business model. A sales specialist will see the market opportunity. Someone close to the leader may primarily want to protect them.

All these perspectives have value. But they are situated.

Each person interprets the situation through their own experience, preferences and relationship with risk. What someone would do “in your position” says as much about their journey as it does about your situation.

The danger, therefore, is not necessarily receiving bad advice. It is mistaking the confidence of the person speaking for the soundness of the decision itself.

Too much advice can add noise to complexity

When a decision carries significant consequences, leaders often consult several people. In principle, this should reduce uncertainty.

Sometimes, it has the opposite effect.

Recommendations conflict. Each person focuses on a different aspect of the situation. A new option appears with every conversation. The leader no longer lacks ideas; they lack a framework for examining them.

They may then choose the opinion that feels most reassuring, confirms their initial intuition or comes from the person whose authority they trust most readily.

The decision may appear well informed because several people were consulted. Yet it can remain exposed to the same blind spots.

Make strategic decisions is not simply choosing between options

A strategic decision cannot be reduced to comparing alternatives.

It requires clarifying what truly matters, distinguishing facts from assumptions, identifying acceptable constraints and considering the consequences of each choice. It also means acknowledging what may be influencing the reasoning: fatigue, urgency, fear of missing an opportunity, attachment to an idea or reluctance to reconsider a direction that has already been announced.

This work cannot be delegated.

An expert can provide information. An adviser can make a recommendation. Someone close to the leader can offer support. But no one carries exactly the same responsibility—or the consequences of the decision.

The leader remains the person who will have to stand behind it before their teams, partners and clients, and sometimes before themselves, long after the advice has been given.

Moving from advice to inquiry

In some situations, the most useful contribution is not another answer.

It is a question that requires the leader to reconsider their reasoning:

What is making this decision difficult today?

Which assumption have you not yet tested?

What are you trying to protect?

What would happen if you did not decide now?

Which option have you dismissed without truly examining it?

Under what conditions would this decision still feel coherent six months from now?

These questions do not provide a ready-made solution. They help leaders better understand the decision they are actually making.

The shift matters. The question is no longer, “What would you do in my position?” It becomes, “What do I need to see, understand or clarify in order to decide from my position?”

Peer challenge is not about taking a vote

Working with peers can create precisely this space for clarification, provided that the process is structured.

The purpose is not for the group to select the best solution. Nor is it to reach a consensus or produce a series of recommendations.

It is to examine a real situation through the eyes of people who understand the challenges involved, while remaining sufficiently removed from it to question what appears self-evident.

Peers ask questions, reframe the situation and reveal contradictions. They draw on their experience not to impose an answer, but to open up the field of reflection. The structure prevents the conversation from becoming a simple exchange of opinions.

The decision does not become collective. The thinking process, however, is enriched by the group.

No longer deciding alone does not mean delegating the decision

Asking for advice remains useful. Some situations require specific expertise, technical knowledge or the benefit of someone else’s experience. The problem arises when advice replaces the work of discernment required by a complex decision.

A leader does not always need someone to tell them what to do.

They may need a space in which their question can be examined without complacency, their assumptions can be tested and the aspects of the situation that remain invisible can emerge.

They may leave with the same decision they had been considering when they arrived.

But it will no longer rest on the same reasoning.

That is where the difference lies: not in the quantity of advice received, but in the quality of the process followed to reach the decision.

An informed decision is not a decision made by several people. It is a personal decision that has benefited from several perspectives.

Le Cercle Stratégie offers professional peer-development groups for leaders in Brussels and Paris. Small groups, a confidential setting and rigorous facilitation provide a space to work through decisions that deserve more than a simple piece of advice.