I've sat in more steering committees than I care to count, across telecom, defense, healthcare, and a handful of startups that thought they didn't need one until they very much did. The pattern that separates the leaders who scale from the ones who plateau isn't decisiveness in the abstract. It's a willingness to say no early.
Late "no" is expensive. It shows up after three sprints of work, after a vendor's already been paid, after the org has quietly reorganized around a decision that was never actually final. Early "no" costs a slightly uncomfortable ten minutes in a meeting. That trade is not close.
The executives I've learned the most from treated "no" as a scoping tool, not a rejection. "Not this quarter." "Not without a named owner." "Not until we know what we're turning off to make room for it." Each one is a no that also tells the room exactly what would change the answer.
It's a habit I picked up the hard way, and one I still have to practice deliberately — usually somewhere between my second cup of coffee and whatever protein shake flavor I'm regretting that week.