Harried or myopic leadership: an undue bias for action

We explore the timing of action as a perspective into bad leadership. The ability to take immediate action is a much-lauded leadership characteristic. The searches of excellence assume that such an action bias delivers success. In this chapter we develop a contrary point of view. We suggest that the kind of harried action conditioned by the demands of the moment and shaped by frequently myopic organizational routines may not result in very good leadership at all, in particular when facing a crisis or meeting a challenge. Hastiness often incurs the costs of action while falling short of the objective. Instead, we suggest that active waiting—a concept supported by examples from military strategy—may constitute temporally reflexive priming for leadership action.