In any high-stakes negotiation, time is never just time. It’s a weapon. It creates pressure, forces moral choices, and in the worst cases, has a real human cost.
Take the internal unrest in Iran. The killing of civilians puts immense pressure on Western leaders to do something – and do it now. The public demands it, the media scrutinizes every move, and there’s a real moral weight to it all. For someone like Donald Trump, the clock is ticking, and everyone can hear it.
But notice he isn’t rushing to the table. That’s not a sign he doesn’t feel the urgency. It’s a calculated negotiation tactic, and it holds a critical lesson for any leader in a high-stakes deal.
It’s one of the hardest things for a leader to learn: feeling the urgency to act doesn’t mean you have to surrender control of the pace. There’s a huge difference between the moral need to solve a problem and the strategic mistake of rushing to a solution. They are not the same thing. Yes, there’s an ethical imperative to stop the violence, but in a negotiation, jumping at the first deal isn’t always the fastest way to get the other side to change. In fact, moving too quickly can relieve the very pressure you need to force their hand.
In a situation like this, time hurts everyone. It hurts the civilians on the ground, it hurts Western leaders facing outrage at home, and it hurts Trump politically. But it doesn’t hurt everyone equally. For a regime facing protests, losing its legitimacy, and getting condemned daily, a drawn-out crisis is a nightmare. It just makes their internal problems worse. For an outside negotiator, waiting has its own costs: reputation, moral standing, but it also protects your leverage. The real question isn’t whether time is creating pressure. It’s who is it crushing the most?
This is where it gets counter-intuitive, and frankly, a little uncomfortable. When a country is unstable, rushing in with a quick deal can actually throw its leadership a lifeline. It gives them a win, a distraction, or a new story to tell their people. Your speed can accidentally buy them the time they need to regroup and reassert control. A deliberate pause, on the other hand, lets their internal problems keep festering. You avoid giving them a clean exit that lets them declare victory and move on. From this perspective, Trump’s restraint might be a bet that a premature deal would only prolong the problem, not solve it.
This isn’t just for geopolitics. Executives face this all the time. Think about a supplier caught in a regulatory scandal, a business partner getting hammered in the press, or even a competitor dealing with messy layoffs. The gut reaction is always to “solve it” and make the noise go away. But by rushing to find a solution, you often take the pressure right off the one party who actually needs to change. When you know time is hurting both sides, a strategic pause can be the difference between a band-aid fix and a real, structural solution.
It’s important to be clear: this kind of strategic delay isn’t about being indifferent or disengaged. It’s about the discipline to not confuse urgency with speed, or action with effectiveness. It means having to tolerate criticism and live with uncertainty, all while keeping your eye on the real goal. Sometimes, the hardest move to make is the most restrained one.
At the end of the day, time always matters. Reputations, deals, and even lives can hang in the balance. But how you manage that time matters far more than how loudly the clock is ticking.
Leaders in these situations shouldn’t be asking, “Can we afford to wait?”
The better question is, “Will moving faster actually solve the problem, or will it just shift the cost somewhere else?”
In any negotiation, moving fast can feel like strong leadership. But true power lies in controlling the pace.
Yael Chayuis a global business negotiation expert, keynote speaker, and strategic advisor to executives across industries. She is a doctoral researcher in Behavioral Economics at Reichman University, where she also serves as Academic Director of the Business Negotiation Program at FORE Executive Education.
