When you're the boss, it's easy to get in the habit of making decisions for or giving direction to people all day long. This is the worst thing you can do for your people. How will they advance and grow without taking a stand or making a decision? If you just tell eveyone around you what to do then how will you get out of being in the middle of every little thing in the project or business?
One person in a group can't know everything or be right all the time.
On the flip side, I see people all throughout my life who refuse to make a decision or articulate a point of view. They end every meeting or conversation waiting for direction or asking "what should we do?" As if they're scared to make the wrong recommendation. Or they don't want to be held accountable for the results of a decision. And suddenly 96 emails later you're in a vortex of hell full of passing the ball, asking for opinion, and posturing.
The day is filled with subjective questions, where there is no clear answer -- here is where YOU can become invaluable in your environment. When you can not just analyze or assess a situation but move forward from it!
TAKE A STAND! Tell us what you think we should do. Weigh options and give me (or whoever) your opinion about a way forward. You may not have all the information. Based on the information I have, I may not agree with you. But if you come to me (or your colleague or your client or your partner or your friend or your....) with an informed point of view (e.g. "Here's what's going on, here are the options I see and their consequences, based on what I know I think we should do XYZ), then you've advanced the discussion and caught me up to your knowledge and analysis, and I (or anyone) can add context and decide together.
Without your informed point of view, all you're doing is (as my friend Paul's father says) "is coming and $%(ing on my lap."
And that's just a mess.
PS. Here's an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal on the science of Why So Many People Can't Make Decisions.