There is a kind of transformation leader who treats consultation as friction, a tax imposed by people who do not feel the urgency. In some organizations, and some countries, that attitude is not merely impatient. It is a way to make a decision that does not stick, because the people and bodies that confer legitimacy were stepped over on the way to being fast.
Speed without legitimacy is not speed
A decision made quickly and imposed is not finished. It is pending appeal. The time you saved by skipping the conversation does not vanish; it returns later, with interest, as resistance, rework, or a formal objection that stops the whole thing cold. What looked like velocity was a loan, and the repayment terms are bad.
Moving fast and moving legitimately are not opposites. But where they conflict, the illegitimate decision is the slower one. It just hides its delay until later.
Legitimacy is structural, not emotional
This is not an argument for waiting until everyone feels good. Consensus-as-comfort is its own trap, and a leader who waits for unanimous warmth will wait forever. Legitimacy is firmer than feelings. In places with works councils, regulators, or strong representative bodies, it has a defined process, and that process is not optional. Honoring it is not softness. It is the mechanism by which a decision becomes real and enforceable.
Design consultation in, not around
The classic mistake is to design the change first and "manage" the required consultation afterwards, as damage control. That is how a legitimate process becomes an ambush in the middle of your plan. Build the conversations that confer legitimacy into the sequence from day one. Done early, they are part of the design. Done late, they are the thing that detonates it.
Decide quickly wherever you can. But where legitimacy has a process, the genuinely fast move is to honor it early, because the decision that gets contested later was never as fast as it looked.