As leaders, we rightly pride ourselves on resilience, commitment, and seeing things through. Those qualities build careers and organisations, but they can also lock us into one of the most costly cognitive traps: the sunk cost fallacy.
That’s when we keep backing a project, strategy, or relationship mainly because we’ve already invested time, money, political capital, or personal credibility, even when the future return no longer stacks up.
For senior leaders, this is especially dangerous. The more influence we have, the more our past decisions feel tied to our identity. Changing course can feel like admitting we were wrong, when it’s often the most strategic move in the room.
The shift is simple to describe, yet hard to do. It’s moving from protecting past investments to maximising future value.
Some practical ways to do that:
- Reframe decisions around opportunity cost What is continuing this stopping you from doing instead?
- Normalise course correction Treat changing direction as a mark of strategic maturity, not failure.
- Set decision checkpoints upfront Agree the metrics or milestones that will trigger a rethink.
- Separate ego from outcomes Leadership isn’t about being right; it’s about doing the right thing.
With that in mind, take time to think:
- Which initiatives are you continuing mainly because of past investment rather than future potential?
- Where might your identity or reputation be tied too tightly to a previous decision?
- What opportunities are you delaying, or missing, because you’re holding on to something that no longer serves your goals?
- If you were starting from zero today, what would you choose to continue, and what would you walk away from?
As leaders, we can show our people that we are role modelling the changes that all of us want to see. Let’s be better and be the change – contact [email protected] if you would like help to do so.
For more articles, encouraging you to think and be the change – visit here.