A summary based on research by Thora Lou and Inger G. Stensaker, NHH Norwegian School of Economics
How values, emotions and reflection shape executives’ toughest decisions?
What do senior executives do when they face competing demands and there is no obviously right answer? The research shows that navigating such decisions requires more than analysis. Effective decision-making may also depend on leaders’ ability to live with ambiguity, consider different perspectives, and draw on their own values and emotional responses before deciding when and how to act.
Senior executives regularly face decisions in which legitimate objectives pull in different directions: reducing costs while investing for growth, delivering short-term results while developing long-term capabilities, or balancing global standardization with local adaptation.
Such tensions are not necessarily problems that can be permanently solved. Instead, executives may have to navigate competing demands that persist over time. How do senior executives make important decisions under these conditions?
Findings from interviews with executives working in complex organizations characterized by competing demands challenge the idea that difficult executive decisions can be handled through analysis alone. When demands are genuinely competing, emotions, personal values and the ability to tolerate ambiguity can become important parts of the decision-making process.
The first is linear and analytical. Executives following this approach seek to reduce complexity by separating issues, assessing risks and consequences, and looking for trade-offs or opportunities for optimization. Decisions are largely approached as problems that can be analysed and resolved. Emotions and personal values are less prominent in the process.
The second is slow, circular and values-based. Here, executives tolerate more of the ambiguity inherent in competing demands. Rather than immediately reducing the situation to a choice between alternatives, they move back and forth between objective information, different perspectives, reflection, experience and their own values.
This process can take time. Executives collect information, seek other perspectives, allow impressions to mature and then revisit the issue. Even the objective of the decision may become clearer or change during this process. Eventually, the different pieces can reach a point where a decision feels right from the executive’s values-based perspective.
Crucially, this is not simply a matter of “trusting your gut.” The process combines facts, perspectives from others, experience, intuition, emotions and values. Intuition emerges from a process of reflection and maturation rather than replacing analysis.
Competing demands can place executives under considerable emotional strain. Emotions are not simply noise that professional decision-makers should eliminate. They are part of how executives experience and navigate difficult choices.
Positive emotions such as excitement and optimism can accelerate decisions, while insecurity and conflict avoidance can slow them down. A strong values-based purpose can help executives deal with some of the emotional strain associated with conflicting demands.
The capacity to maintain sufficient inner calm when facing complexity and contradictory pressures. Together with cognitive complexity, this can help executives remain with a difficult issue long enough to consider conflicting information and different perspectives rather than simplifying the situation prematurely.
There is, however, a personal dimension to sustaining this capacity. The study points to the importance of balancing a strong sense of values-based purpose with self-care. Executives who neglect self-care while continuously dealing with organizational tensions can risk emotional exhaustion and burnout.
This broadens what we mean by rigorous executive decision-making. When the challenge is complex and demands genuinely compete, good leadership does not necessarily mean analysing faster or forcing an early trade-off.
It may instead require executives to stay with the tension, combine objective analysis with different perspectives, reflect on their values and emotional responses, and give the decision sufficient time to mature.
What are we really trying to achieve? Which values should guide this decision? What perspectives might we be missing? And have we given ourselves enough time to understand the complexity before we act?
Source: Lou, T. & Stensaker, I. G. (2026). “Executive Decision-Making in the Face of Competing Demands: The Role of Emotions and Values.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Emotions and Values in Organizational Institutionalism. Springer Nature.
