At best, being a leader is tough and gets increasingly tougher as you move up in rank. Although some aspects of leadership get easier with experience, most of us never get to the point where we can say we’ve mastered leadership. In our roles as leaders, we are consistently called on to make tough decisions, and frequently the decisions that need to be made are in areas where we have limited past experience.

In the last few weeks, we’ve worked with several leaders who’ve struggled with tough decisions that didn’t turn out well. Some of the difficult decisions these leaders have made include:

  • Determining if she should terminate a team member for just cause, despite that employee being a key contributor to the team’s success
  • Deciding who and when to include employees in a critical decision, if at all
  • Deciding whether to coach and counsel an employee or let the employee correct the performance problem on his or her own
  • Assessing whether or not to get involved in an obvious personality conflict between employees
  • Determining whether to advise the boss or HR about an employee concern or handle the problem on his own
  • Knowing that an ethical concern exists within an area outside her influence, and deciding whether to bring it to management’s attention, or not
  • Whether to tell her boss, the CEO and/or the Executive Team about a problem in her department, or handle it quietly on her own

When you consider why some leaders are successful and some are not, many times the difference between a successful and unsuccessful leader is directly linked to the choices and decisions they make.

A reporter once asked Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, “How did you become so successful?” to which Walton replied, “I have made a lot of good decisions.” The reporter then asked an important follow-up question: “How did you learn to make good decisions?” “By making a lot of bad decisions,” was Walton’s reply.

Being promoted up the ladder takes many years of consistent, sound decisions. The converse is also true. Unfortunately, leaders can fall from grace and be fired over one bad decision.

When you ask successful leaders how they make decisions, the following comments are often shared:

Past Experience and Knowledge: The leader has made past decisions in the topic area and the decisions have achieved the goal.

Gut Instincts: This is what leaders use in the absence of hard analytical support. Example: a leader hires someone who is clearly not the best qualified candidate because his guts tell him the person has a terrific attitude and can do the job.

Information and Data: Data is raw information. When data is combined into something meaningful, the analysis provides valuable information to make decisions.

Source: For some leaders, the source of the information may impact the decision they make. Some sources are more credible than others.

Collaborative Thinking: Great leaders don’t make decisions in a vacuum. They ask the right questions, frequently seeking diverse or challenging thinkers’ input. They consider input and use it to fine tune their decision.

The following tips and recommendations will help leaders make better decisions, especially when the decisions seem difficult:

  1. Generate Options: Determine the best solution and then develop a second or third option in the event that the first option doesn’t work. People who view themselves as having only one option to choose from are prone to making a bad decision, knowing that there is a high possibility for error or problems with that decision.
  2. Perform a Pro-Con or Cost Benefit Analysis: Lay out a range of options and determine the pros, cons and cost associated with each possible decision and outcome.
  3. Acknowledge You Have Bias: Anytime we’re involved in a decision, there’s a good chance that we’re biased. Bias helps us to feel emotion and see patterns or outcomes that we want or don’t want to see. This is like the person in their 50’s who gets a divorce so that he can rekindle a high school or college romance … only to find out later that the person he knew 30 years ago changed.
  4. Get Feedback from a Non-biased Third Party: If you have ever watchedShark Tank, a show in which entrepreneurs pitch their businesses and products to brutally honest tycoon investors, you’ve witnessed this point in action. People who don’t have the same vested interest in the decision have a better ability to look through a lens that is not distorted with emotional or past experiences.
  5. Publicly Debate the Decision: If you want to test the soundness of your decision, engage in debate with people who will be impacted by the decision or people who are opposed to your decision. The debate is either going to give you more confidence to move forward, or it’ll create the need to develop another option.
  6. Blow Up and Publicize the Decision: Imagine that the soundness of your decision is going to be printed on the front page of BusinessWeek. Will others reading about your decision look at your decision as being a good choice that stands the test of time?
  7. Determine the Right Thing to Do: Standing behind a decision that everyone agrees with is easy to do. Standing behind a decision that everyone is against or fearful to make is what great leaders live for. When it comes to doing the right thing, honesty and full disclosure will seldom be wrong. John Wooden, the legendary basketball Coach at UCLA said it best about doing the right thing. “In life, there is a choice you need to make in everything you do … so keep in mind that in the end the choices you make, make you!”
  8. Make the Decision: I believe that more leaders get themselves in trouble by taking too long to make a decision or not making a decision at all. In other words, many leaders hope the problem will go away on its own. Theodore Roosevelt said, “In any moment of decision, the best thing to do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” I agree.
  9. Have a Contingency Plan: The best decisions, even ones where you followed the above 8 points sometimes go wrong. It won’t be fatal if you have a contingency plan and other options to put into action.

Leadership and decision-making are tightly linked. You can’t separate them. The outcome of a leader’s choices and decisions can, and usually will, make or break that leader. Leaders who continue to rise in organizations do so largely based upon their ability to consistently make sound decisions, not only for their teams, but for the organization as a whole.

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Peter B. Stark, CSP, is President of Peter Barron Stark Companies where he and his team partner with clients to build organizations where employees love to come to work. Peter and his team are experts in employee engagement surveys, leadership and employee development, team building, and executive coaching.