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Living with uncertainty is becoming a critical leadership skill, and Jim Stavis’s story shows how informed decisions can be made without guarantees.
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Jim Stavis, co-founder of Paragon Steel, believes effective decision-making sometimes requires acting after the available information has been considered—even when certainty remains out of reach.
For many leaders, making decisions amid uncertainty appears to have become an increasingly familiar part of the job. In Deloitte’s Spring 2025 CEO Survey, optimism about company performance fell from 84% in fall 2024 to 60%, while 58% of CEOs reported feeling pessimistic about the global economy. The same survey found that leaders identified resilience, adaptability, and agility among the most important attributes for responding to unforeseen events.
