In discussions with senior leaders, I’ve often heard frustration or paralysis when dealing with complex problems. They could be about whether to fire someone, whether to take a particular stance on a politically volatile issue, or which team to shrink when budgets are limited.

The way the situation is often described is one where they can’t see a clear answer, where the only options are terrible ones, where you have to draw a line but can’t prove exactly where, where every major constituency thinks a different one is the right one, or where you could be setting a dangerous precedent for the future. It’s understandable for this to be stressful. It’s not acceptable for it to be a complaint, and it’s especially not acceptable for it to block making a decision.

Making simple decisions is other people’s job. If you’re a senior leader, you should never see a simple decision. You should have people and processes that handle them before they get to you. Many of them you shouldn’t even know about. A well-run organization will only bring difficult decisions to you. Perhaps sometimes the difficulty is in the stakes, but more often it’s in the uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflict. This, by design, is the responsibility of a senior leader.

That means you have to be willing to take a leap of faith into the fog. It means you have to decide to deliberately go down an ugly, painful path. It means you have to draw an arbitrary line between two nearly identical shades of gray. It means you have to frustrate multiple constituencies by choosing something they oppose. It means you have to make the decision that’s right for right now, and in the future, make a different decision in a seemingly identical situation. A decision is better than indecision, but it’s going to feel worse and be received worse. If this was easy, you wouldn’t deserve the fancy title and the big bucks.