Some calls lose you the vote today and win you the respect next month. Make them anyway.

Popularity and judgment run on different clocks. A decision that is right and unwelcome will cost you immediately and pay much later, once people have seen how it turned out, and by then most of them will not connect the two. That delay is exactly why unpopular correct calls are rare.

When you are weighing a decision, ask which version you would defend in six months rather than which one gets you through the afternoon. Make it, explain your reasoning once, and then stop arguing. Let the outcome do the rest of the talking.