| Decision Making |
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Note: references for the decision making section are coded within square brackets. The complete citations may be found here. There is no shortage of desirable leadership attributes, but is there one single trait that encapsulates what the leadership function is all about? We argue that the single most important function of leadership is decision making. A leader’s main function is to make decisions for those who can’t or won’t make decisions themselves. We elect or appoint leaders precisely because we expect them to make decisions for us. The very act of selecting them empowers them to make choices on our behalf. We exhibit personal leadership when we make choices for ourselves, including the decision to outsource decision making to another person. Military leaders are appointed or elected to make the important strategic and tactical decisions that result in victory. Corporate leaders are hired to make decisions that increase a company’s competitiveness and profitability. Political leaders are elected (or take power by other means) with the promise of making the decisions that will yield prosperity for their citizens. When any of these leaders fail to make the correct choices, their tenures end. This applies also to those who rule undemocratically. When their choices lead to destitution and suffering, they are eventually overwhelmed by uprising and revolution. The challenging aspect of decision making is that the important decisions must be made under conditions of risk or uncertainty. In Harvard Business Review on Decision Making Peter Drucker puts it succinctly as, "every decision is a risk-taking judgment." Decisions may impact individuals, families, teams, villages, large corporations, extensive congregations, or entire societies. Regardless of the size of the affected population, better decisions lead to a better world. This is why it is so critical that we all nurture and develop better decision making skills, and that we are able to identify and quantify risks associated with various decisions. While it is often assumed that great leaders make decisions on a moment’s notice, utilizing some inherent and heroic sense of intuition, many of the best decisions are the result of a sequence of decision making steps. Responsible leaders are aware of the internal and external factors affecting decision making, and especially those influences representing impediments or barriers to decision making. In some cases, often due to time constraints, it's not possible to adhere to the sequence of steps mentioned earlier. Gary Klein's Recognition Primed Decision Model (RPD), provides some insight into the decision making process used by experts in high stress situations, such as firefighters and soldiers. It’s a model of quick decisions based on intuition, which differs from traditional rational decision making models. With increasing self-awareness, we also expect more of our leaders, and in particular there is greater insistence that leaders incorporate higher values in their decision making. This notion is summarized profoundly in a centuries old quote: "in our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations" - From the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy.
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