September 20, (THEWILL) – There is a point in every golf shot when thinking has to give way to doing. You stand behind the ball, judge the distance, feel the wind, study the lie, and decide where you want the ball to finish. You may consider several options, but eventually the decision has to become a swing.
Last week, in Know Your Number, I wrote about understanding what you can reliably do, rather than building decisions around your most flattering possibilities. That self-awareness supports sound judgement, but knowing your number does not hit the ball. Once you have assessed your capabilities and chosen the appropriate shot, another discipline is required: you must commit to it.
I have experienced this often enough on the golf course to recognise the problem. The mind keeps negotiating after the decision has been made. The swing becomes cautious, the tempo changes, and the planned shot never gets the chance to happen as intended. What looked straightforward moments earlier becomes uncertain simply because the moment to act has arrived.
There is a useful distinction between deliberation and indecision. Deliberation happens before the decision: gathering information, considering alternatives, testing assumptions, and understanding consequences. Indecision begins when the same questions continue after there is enough information to act. One improves judgement; the other quietly undermines it.
The same pattern appears in business. A strategy is discussed, the numbers are tested, perspectives are considered, and a direction is agreed. Then implementation begins and reality introduces uncertainty. A result is slower than expected, a competitor responds differently, or an internal difficulty emerges. Suddenly, people begin reopening settled questions.
Sometimes that is exactly what good leadership requires. New information can invalidate an earlier assumption, and responsible leaders must be willing to change course when the facts change. The difficulty is recognising when a decision genuinely needs reconsideration and when discomfort is simply being mistaken for evidence. Experience has taught me that the two can feel remarkably similar.
There have been many occasions in business when a room has reached a sensible conclusion but struggled to move from agreement to execution. Another analysis is requested, another meeting follows, and another perspective is invited, not because the decision has been disproved, but because acting carries consequences. At some point, additional analysis stops reducing risk and simply postpones responsibility.
No important decision comes with a guarantee. A leader can gather every available fact and still has to judge what happens next. The aim is not to eliminate uncertainty before acting, but to understand it well enough to act responsibly despite it.
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A recent Nigerian development involving MTN offers an illustration. In August, MTN Group announced a partnership with a UAE-based data-centre investment platform to develop AI-ready digital infrastructure across Africa, with Nigeria and South Africa as the initial priority markets. The partnership, operating through Africa Data Hub Holding Limited, combines MTN’s African footprint and market knowledge with specialist data-centre investment, development and operating expertise.
The Nigerian context is important because this is not a distant-market bet. MTN Nigeria had already invested in local digital infrastructure, including the Dabengwa Data Centre and Enterprise Cloud Platform launched in Lagos last year. The newer partnership builds upon that direction rather than beginning from scratch. It represents a decision to continue investing where the market appears to be heading, while accepting that future demand will evolve.
That is what commitment looks like in the real world. MTN does not need to know exactly how Nigeria’s demand for cloud computing, enterprise technology and AI-enabled services will develop over the next decade before acting. Waiting for certainty would mean waiting indefinitely. Instead, it has chosen a direction, secured the capabilities required to pursue it and created room to scale as the market reveals itself. That is conviction without pretending certainty.
The same principle matters once a decision reaches those responsible for delivering it. Teams cannot execute confidently when they suspect that every setback will send leadership back to the starting point. They need clarity about the direction, room to solve problems and confidence that an imperfect early result will not automatically invalidate the entire approach.
Golf offers a rather unforgiving version of this lesson. Once you have chosen the club, selected the line and committed to the shot, you still do not know exactly what will happen. A gust can alter the flight, an imperfect strike can change the distance, and a hard bounce can send the ball somewhere unexpected. Yet standing over it longer does not give you more control. Eventually, the club has to move.
Better golfers understand that commitment is part of execution. They prepare carefully, make their choice, and give the shot their full attention. When the ball lands, they deal with the result they have rather than wishing they had played a different shot. The next decision is made from reality, not from the outcome they had hoped for.
Leadership requires the same discipline because repeated hesitation creates consequences beyond the immediate decision. When leaders continually reverse themselves, teams learn to wait. Managers protect themselves rather than take ownership, and people become reluctant to commit resources or make difficult calls because they are unsure whether today’s direction will remain tomorrow’s.
This is why commitment should not be confused with stubbornness. A golfer who discovers that they have misread the distance should change clubs before swinging. A business leader who discovers that a critical assumption was wrong should reconsider the decision. Holding onto a position simply because it has been announced is not conviction; it is attachment.
Shortly after I joined Oando in 2003, the legendary and future-focused Wale Tinubu bought every manager a copy of Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan’s Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done and required us not only to read it, but also to organise retreats around its central ideas. The gesture carried a message: ideas and strategies matter only when an organisation develops the discipline to translate them into results. More than two decades later, I still appreciate the wisdom of that message. Execution is not the administrative stage that follows strategy; it is where leadership accepts responsibility for turning a considered decision into purposeful action.
The same is true personally. We sometimes imagine that clarity means feeling completely certain. Important decisions rarely offer that luxury. A new responsibility may carry risk, an investment may contain unknowns, and a career decision may involve consequences that cannot be fully predicted. What matters is whether enough is understood to make a responsible choice.
Good judgement does not require perfect certainty. It requires enough understanding to make a considered decision and enough conviction to give it a fair chance to work. A strategy cannot be tested properly if it is implemented timidly.
At some point, thinking has done its job. The target has been chosen, the club selected, and the conditions understood as well as they can be. The next responsibility is to swing. In golf, that means trusting the work that came before the shot. In leadership, it means acting on a considered decision, learning from the outcome, and moving forward without endlessly reopening what has already been settled.
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The author, Meka Niyi Olowola (FSPIN, FIMC), is a seasoned business leader and entrepreneur with three decades of experience and an avid golfer.
