“Rob, you’re being intellectually dishonest.”

That response caught me off guard in a board meeting I thought I’d just nailed.

“You never give me a real choice in your presentations,” the senior executive added.

I pushed back. “What do you mean? I showed you three scenarios to choose from.”

“Exactly. The one you want, and two where I’d have to be an idiot to choose them.”

He had a valid point.

I hadn’t consciously tried to manipulate the outcome. But I could see what he meant. I had probably emphasized the flaws in the other options just enough to make my preferred path seem like the only rational choice. Hidden my preference in plain sight.

At the time, I had only recently made the shift from entrepreneurship into corporate leadership. And it dawned on me that the way I structured my presentations was shaped by my background... not as decision documents, but as sales pitches. I wasn’t really offering a fair choice. I was nudging people toward the conclusion I wanted... without saying so explicitly.

And once I saw it, I started noticing how common it is.

Teams are asked to bring options. So they do. But often, one of them is the “real” option… and the rest are window dressing. Scenarios padded with risk, or missing key ingredients, or framed in a way that makes them easy to dismiss.

Not intentionally deceptive, just quietly engineered.

But over time, executives notice. The deck starts to feel like theatre. And trust starts to erode.

From then on, I changed how I structured these decision moments.

I still gave a clear recommendation. But instead of stacking the deck, I laid out the options as objectively as possible. I presented the trade-offs, the constraints, and the risks... without distortion. And then I clearly marked the route I believed in, and explained why.

Taking a stand doesn’t mean hiding the other routes. It means showing the full terrain… and then marking your chosen trail.

This shift had a few important effects.

First, it built trust. Leaders could sense the difference. When your preference isn’t hidden in manipulation, it signals confidence... not control.

Second, it led to better conversations. Because the other options were still on the table, discussions often revealed more about how executives viewed the situation, what they valued, or how they interpreted the company’s North Star. That made the whole team sharper for the next decision too.

But maybe the most important shift was this:
It made it clear that I was on the same team.

I wasn’t trying to win the meeting. I was trying to move the mission forward, with them.

And that’s what leadership looks like in practice.

Clarity earns trust.
And trust is what moves teams forward… especially when the path isn’t obvious.