Leaders are required to make decisions. The best decision-makers are systematic, analytical, patient, evidence-based, and disciplined in their thinking. They seek input and ideas from their team and outside experts. They avoid ego, personalities, emotion, and irrational reasoning from influencing their choices.
Here’s a standard process successful leaders follow to arrive at sound and defensible decisions:
- Issue Identification – leaders recognize and define the issue correctly.
- Research/Resources – leaders 1) get all the facts and interview everyone involved 2) identify all alternatives and options 3) access sources of guidance to apply to the facts before them concerning this specific issue – for a public official, this could mean the U.S. or state constitution, federal or state statutes, judicial or administrative case-law, agency policy, an opinion issued by Florida’s Attorney General, the advice of legal counsel and any relevant office in the organization such as human resources, a professional ethical code, model policies from professional associations, They want to know the empirically validated best practices concerning this problem or opportunity.
- Analysis – leaders honestly and objectively evaluate all competing arguments/relevant criteria on the issues involved for all of the specific alternatives. They apply compelling logic to sound evidence and assess the organizational values which could be involved.
- Final Check – leaders take an opportunity to be as certain as they can be before making the final decision – they ask what will the reaction and consequences be? They do not overanalyze and unnecessarily delay but they take sufficient time to be confident in the choice as it will impact others. Perfect information is a rare event, and decisions ultimately have to be made. It is a unique problem which goes away on its own although this can happen.
- Decide, explain, implement, and evaluate/measure the eventual outcomes. It is essential that leaders effectively communicate about the decision so it is known, understood, embraced, and acted upon as intended. As Dr. Lawrence Martin observed, “Implementation is our number one problem.” A specific and actionable implementation plan will be needed to ensure the success of the decision. Lastly, it is important to compare promises and performance and objectives with outcomes. How well did the decision work in achieving stated objectives?
Leaders should avoid the mistake of making the decision first and then trying to rationalize it. They know that a good process is more likely to result in solid decisions. Leaders ultimately succeed or fail based upon the quality of their decisions (Abrashoff, 2002; Collins, 2001; Maxwell.1998; Starling, 2008).
