The 7 Decision Mindsets
Research-backed mindset categories that reveal how you make decisions — and a self-coaching guide to uplevel your thinking the same day.
Why Mindset Determines Your Decisions
Four key themes emerged from Shari's doctoral research.
Explore Each Mindset
Fear
Fear is one of the most powerful — and most common — mindsets in high-stakes decision-making. When leaders operate from fear, they may delay decisions, over-analyze, or defer to others to avoid accountability for outcomes.
Fear isn't weakness. It's information. The key is learning to recognize it, name it, and lead through it rather than from it.
Self-Coaching: Moving Through Fear
- Ask: "What is the worst realistic outcome — and can I live with it?"
- Separate the emotion of fear from the facts of the situation
- Take one small, courageous action to break the paralysis
- Debrief afterward to build your evidence base of resilience
Denial
Denial can look like optimism from the outside — but internally, it's the refusal to accept the full reality of a situation. Leaders in denial may minimize a crisis, avoid difficult conversations, or rationalize inaction.
Denial is often a protection mechanism. But decisions made without accepting reality rarely lead to effective outcomes.
Self-Coaching: Moving from Denial to Clarity
- Practice saying the hard truth out loud, to yourself first
- Invite a trusted colleague to offer an unfiltered perspective
- Ask: "What am I not willing to see right now?"
- Ground yourself in facts and data, not hoped-for outcomes
Acceptance
Acceptance is not resignation — it's the powerful stance of seeing reality clearly and choosing to respond from that grounded place. Leaders with an acceptance mindset move faster, communicate more honestly, and earn deeper trust.
Research found that leaders who could quickly accept a crisis situation as real were far more effective at mobilizing their teams and making sound decisions.
Self-Coaching: Deepening Acceptance
- Practice daily: "This is what is true right now."
- Distinguish between what you can control and what you cannot
- Use acceptance as a launch pad — not a destination
- Model acceptance for your team; your calm is contagious
Motivations
Understanding why you make the decisions you do is one of the most transformative acts of self-awareness a leader can engage in. Motivations — whether rooted in achievement, service, status, or security — shape the lens through which every decision is filtered.
When your motivations are clear and aligned with your values, your decisions become more consistent, more authentic, and more trusted by your team.
Self-Coaching: Clarifying Your Motivations
- Journal: "In this decision, what am I really trying to protect or achieve?"
- Notice when fear-based motivations are masquerading as strategy
- Check alignment: does this decision reflect what I say I value?
- Invite accountability from a mentor or coach
Confidence
Confidence in decision-making isn't about being right — it's about being willing to act, own the outcome, and learn from it. Shari's research found that confidence grows through experience, self-awareness, and team trust.
Leaders with a confidence mindset can make unpopular decisions, maintain composure under fire, and bounce back from mistakes with greater speed and wisdom.
Self-Coaching: Building Decision Confidence
- Celebrate decisions you got right — even small ones
- Reframe mistakes as data, not as identity
- Build a decision-making track record through consistent reflection
- Surround yourself with people who believe in your leadership
Team
100% of the leaders in Shari's research cited trust as a foundational element of effective decision-making. The Team mindset recognizes that the best decisions are rarely made in isolation — they are shaped by the collective intelligence, perspectives, and buy-in of the people around you.
Leaders with a strong Team mindset know who to include, how to build psychological safety, and how to harness collaboration even in high-pressure situations.
Self-Coaching: Strengthening Team Decisions
- Identify your core "decision circle" — who do you trust most?
- Practice including people with different perspectives
- Build trust before a crisis so you can draw on it during one
- Debrief team decisions together — celebrate wins and learn from misses
Grace
Grace is the highest decision mindset — and perhaps the rarest. Leaders who operate from grace bring compassion, humility, wisdom, and a long-term perspective to every decision. They can hold the weight of hard choices without being crushed by them.
Grace-based decision-making doesn't mean being soft. It means being fully human — integrating strength with gentleness, courage with compassion, and urgency with patience.
Self-Coaching: Cultivating Grace
- Ask: "What decision would I make if I knew I was fully forgiven for the outcome?"
- Practice extending grace to yourself when decisions don't go as planned
- Look for the longer arc — how will this decision look in 10 years?
- Draw on your faith, values, and sense of purpose to anchor decisions
Ready to Discover Your Decision Mindset?
The Decision DynamiX™ Assessment is a 63-question tool that identifies which of the 7 mindsets most influences your decision-making — plus a self-coaching guide to help you grow, the same day.
Take the Assessment