Persistent preference for leaders who make fast decisions: Decision speed impacts leader evaluations

Abstract

Past research has found that making complex decisions slowly and intuitive decisions quickly leads to better interpersonal evaluations, since people like decision makers who think “just the right amount.” However, we propose that this effect does not hold for leaders because people have a stereotypic belief that leaders must be decisive, assertive, and self-assured, and therefore make quick decisions. Four studies support this prediction. Specifically, we observe that people evaluate leaders (vs. non-leaders) more positively when they make fast (vs. slow) decisions (Study 1) regardless of whether the nature of the decision is complex or intuitive, and this effect of decision speed on positive evaluations of leaders is mediated by judgments of confidence (Studies 2 and 3). Additionally, we examined the boundary conditions of this persistent bias for leaders who make fast decisions by varying the rationales (e.g., debating with others, doing calculations, gathering information) that leaders give for making slow decisions. Still, we did not find that there were situations in which leaders who make slow decisions were evaluated more positively than those who made fast decisions (Study 4). Taken together, results indicate that people make strong, positive evaluative judgments for leaders who always make quick decisions.