Conviction Over Consensus

Photo by Lê Tân on Unsplash

Consensus is comforting. Conviction is lonely. And if you’re doing leadership right, you’ll spend more time in the latter than the former.

Here’s the dirty little secret: if everyone agrees with your decision, it’s probably mediocre. It’s vanilla. Safe. Designed not to offend anyone. Leadership isn’t about crafting something that gets 100% approval on the company Slack poll. Leadership is about seeing where the puck is going, skating there, and being willing to get booed while you wait for everyone else to catch up.

The Popularity Trap

Most leaders secretly want to be liked. They want the room nodding along, the applause at the all-hands, the pat on the back. It feels good. But it’s a sugar high, and like all sugar highs, it crashes. The moment you confuse popularity with progress, you’re done.

Steve Jobs wasn’t loved when he cut product lines and told people “this is shit.” Reed Hastings wasn’t adored when he axed DVD rentals to double down on streaming. Churchill was despised when he warned Britain about Hitler while everyone else wanted appeasement. Conviction is rarely met with applause in the moment. More often it’s rolled eyes, deep sighs, and whispered conversations about how you’ve lost your mind.

And yet, history remembers conviction. Consensus is wallpaper — it fades.

Why Conviction Hurts

Conviction means risk. You might be wrong. You might lose money, lose face, or lose the job. But that’s the tax you pay for actually leading. The coward’s way out is building decisions by committee until all the edges are sanded down and what you’re left with is a “strategy” that offends nobody and excites nobody. That’s not leadership — that’s middle management cosplay.

Think about it: every meaningful leap in business or society began with someone saying, “This is where we’re going,” and a chorus of critics screaming back, “You’re insane.” Conviction is the willingness to withstand that chorus.

The Math of Leadership

Leadership isn’t about getting to 100% agreement. It’s about making the best call with 60% of the data and 100% of the accountability. That last part is key. Consensus spreads accountability so thin that no one feels the weight. Conviction concentrates it squarely on you. That’s terrifying — and liberating.

When you choose conviction, you stop waiting for permission. You stop running every idea through the popularity filter. You accept that someone — maybe a lot of someones — will hate your decision. And you keep going.

How to Build Conviction (Without Becoming a Tyrant)

Let’s be clear: conviction doesn’t mean being an arrogant jerk who refuses to listen. Dictators confuse stubbornness for strength. Great leaders listen, synthesize, and then choose a direction — not because it will make them popular, but because they believe it’s right.

Three rules to make conviction your compass:

1. Seek input, not validation. Ask people what they think. Listen hard. Then have the guts to make the call, even if it goes against the grain.
2. Decide, then commit. Half-conviction is worse than no conviction. Once you’ve made the call, go all in. Nothing kills momentum like a leader who waffles.
3. Own the outcome. If you’re wrong, take the hit publicly. If you’re right, share the credit. Conviction isn’t about ego; it’s about responsibility.

Why This Matters Now

We’re living in an era of polls, likes, retweets, and endless feedback loops. Leaders are drowning in data about what people want to hear. The temptation to chase consensus has never been stronger. But the best leaders do the opposite: they filter out the noise and double down on clarity of direction.

Consensus makes you safe. Conviction makes you dangerous — in the best way. It’s the difference between steering a cruise ship and captaining a speedboat. One moves comfortably in the same direction as everyone else. The other cuts through waves, takes risks, and gets to new destinations first.

The Gut Punch

If you’re leading right, someone will hate your decision. Maybe even a lot of people. That’s the price of doing something that matters. If nobody hates it, nobody loves it — and mediocrity is the real enemy.

So stop aiming for applause. Aim for impact. Stop trying to be liked. Start trying to be respected. Choose conviction over consensus.

Because consensus builds careers. Conviction builds legacies.

Hi, I’m Brian Fink, the author of Talk Tech To Me. If you like how I write, preorder my newest book, Talk Tech To Me 2.0 available October 6, 2025.