How Marketing Leaders Make Smart Decisions in Uncertain Times
Four reframing questions to help you lead with clarity, influence, and long-term impact, especially when everything feels up in the air.
Welcome to the era of perma-crisis.
It’s everywhere we go.
Economic instability. AI disruption. Cultural turbulence. Geopolitical volatility.
For marketing leaders, the last few years have been less about navigating the occasional crisis and more about making tough calls in a world that refuses to sit still.
In these conditions, the pressure to “wait it out” is real. We tell ourselves we’ll act when we get more data, confidence, and direction from the top. But let’s be honest with ourselves: waiting for certainty is a luxury most marketing leaders can no longer afford.
In a perma-crisis world, smart decision-making isn’t about eliminating uncertainty but learning to work through it with courage, context, and strategic clarity.
If you’re leading marketing in a complex business (especially if you're trying to prove marketing’s value in a sales- or product-dominated culture), these four questions can help you move from hesitation to impact.
1. What decision today will still make sense a year from now?
When your CFO asks for budget cuts…
When your CRO wants to shift all spend into lead gen…
When your CEO is second-guessing the brand strategy you’ve spent six months aligning around…
…it’s tempting to make fast moves that calm the waters, at the cost of long-term strategy.
But marketing leadership isn’t just about responsiveness. It’s about resilience.
What decision today will still make sense a year from now? forces you to pause, zoom out, and pressure-test your thinking against the future you’re trying to build.
It asks:
Are we optimising for this quarter or building for next year?
Are we making decisions out of fear or from a clear position of intent?
What values and direction do we want this choice to reflect?
Example:
You’re under pressure to slash your campaign budget. The easiest cut? Your brand health tracking and long-term content series. But before you green-light the axe, you ask:
“What decision today will still make sense a year from now?”
You realise that in 12 months, you’ll need proof of brand lift to justify investment, or explain decline. And that your CEO wants to grow the business internationally, which requires consistent storytelling and distinctiveness. Instead of cutting both, you propose keeping the tracking and pausing paid media for three months, reinvesting that budget into sales enablement and ABM to protect revenue momentum now while defending long-term brand investment.
That’s strategic leadership under pressure.
2. If a year from now this decision is used as an example of our leadership, what would it teach?
This one’s deeper. It shifts the focus from metrics to meaning, from short-term wins to lasting signals.
In high-stakes situations, especially where your choices affect people, customers, or brand trust, this question asks:
What story are we telling with this move?
What values are we modelling to our teams and stakeholders?
What kind of leadership are we embodying in how we respond?
Example:
Imagine you're leading marketing in a health tech company. Your team flags a compliance grey area in your latest campaign targeting clinicians - nothing illegal, just borderline aggressive messaging that raises ethical questions.
The legal team gives the green light. But it doesn’t sit right. You ask yourself:
“If this decision became the example of our leadership, what would it teach?”
You reframe the choice: from “Can we?” to “Should we?”
You decide to rework the campaign messaging to better align with your brand’s clinical integrity stance, even if it means delaying the launch. You share the rationale openly with your team and sales colleagues.
The short-term impact? Minor.
The long-term effect? You’re seen as the kind of marketing leader who doesn’t just defend the brand but owns and defines it.
3. What if this isn’t the storm - what if it’s the climate?
This question is a mindset reset.
Most businesses are still clinging to the idea that things will “go back to normal.” That next quarter will be clearer and that this chaos is temporary. But what if the ambiguity isn’t the glitch - what if it’s the system?
This question urges you to stop waiting for stability and start designing for adaptability. It’s the difference between trying to survive the weather vs. engineering your building to withstand any conditions.
Example:
Your campaign timelines keep slipping because product releases are behind schedule. Sales keep bypassing agreed-upon messaging, and your enablement materials are outdated the moment they launch.
Your instinct is to “ride it out” until the next product cycle stabilises. But then you pause and ask:
“What if this isn’t the storm, what if it’s the climate?”
You flip your approach. You stop building annual mega-campaigns and shift to modular, agile assets that flex with the product roadmap. You build cross-functional planning rhythms into your ops. You train your team to iterate instead of perfect.
Suddenly, marketing isn’t “struggling to keep up.” It’s leading the charge on resilience and responsiveness.
4. What’s the cost of waiting?
In risk-averse cultures, “wait and see” can feel like the safest move. But often, that instinct quietly erodes your momentum, market presence, and credibility.
This question helps you surface the hidden cost of inaction.
What will we lose by not moving?
Which opportunities will pass us by?
How will our credibility suffer if we delay again?
Example:
You’ve built the business case for hiring a senior brand strategist to help define the company’s positioning as you prepare for expansion. The market’s shaky. The CEO is nervous.
Your gut says, Wait six months until revenue picks up. But then you ask:
“What’s the cost of waiting?”
You realise:
Your sales team is already feeling the pain of poor differentiation.
Competitors are doubling down on their thought leadership.
You have strong candidates on your shortlist now—but may not later.
You propose a milestone-based hire: bring them on with an initial 6-month contract, tied to strategic deliverables. You move forward with control—but without delay.
The result? Momentum, not paralysis. Action, not anxiety.
Leading With Questions in a Perma-Crisis World
When it all feels too quick and you’re surrounded by constant change, you don’t need all the answers. But you do need better questions.
These four questions will help you cut through noise, surface blind spots, and avoid reactive traps. They’ll strengthen your strategic muscle, anchor your decisions in purpose (not panic) and help you build a reputation as a leader who acts wisely, even when the ground is shifting beneath your feet.
Ask yourself:
What’s the long-term impact of this move?
What values does it reflect?
Are we designing for endurance, not just execution?
What’s at risk if we wait too long?
You don’t need more certainty. You need more clarity.
And clarity begins with the questions you choose to ask