As a leader, the ability to make sound, informed, and beneficial decisions is your fundamental job requirement. You may consider yourself a good decision-maker, but you can always optimize the process further.
Here are seven tips for sharpening your leadership decision-making skills, so you can make better decisions for your organization:
Overcome excessive self-confidence: The best leaders know that overconfidence can be a major hindrance to effective decision-making. Overconfident leaders often fail to realize that they should be less secure in their decision-making. To overcome this issue, it’s important to accept that you may be overconfident and to revisit your decisions from a more logical perspective.
Improve your predictions through objectivity: The most decisive leaders recognize that their ability to predict outcomes plays a crucial role in their decision-making. To make more accurate predictions, leaders should turn to objectivity and access data regarding the typical outcomes of events. By sparing a thought on how likely something is to happen in a certain way in the real world, leaders can distance themselves from subjectivity, which clouds judgment.
Explore alternative options. The most effective leaders realize that even when they feel fairly certain about a decision, it’s important to explore alternative approaches. One way to accomplish this is by designating an antagonist whose mission is to overturn your decision. Antagonists help leaders see their decision in a different light and can lead to more informed decisions.
Become aware of your biases: The most successful leaders know that intuition-based decision-making skills can be a double-edged sword. While relying on intuition is fine up to a point, it’s important to be aware of your personal biases and to keep them in check through self-reflection.
Limit your choices: The best leaders understand that having too many options to consider can be mentally debilitating when making a decision. By limiting your choices to a handful that you can thoroughly analyze and handle, leaders can make more informed decisions and optimize their decision-making abilities.
Leadership relies heavily on the ability to make well-informed and unbiased decisions. By following these seven tips for sharpening your leadership decision-making skills, you can improve your decision-making abilities and make better choices for your organization.
Lead From Within: By turning these tips into a habit, you will find it easier than ever to make better, more informed, and objective decisions.
#1 N A T I O N A L B E S T S E L L E R
The Leadership Gap
What Gets Between You and Your Greatness
After decades of coaching powerful executives around the world, Lolly Daskal has observed that leaders rise to their positions relying on a specific set of values and traits. But in time, every executive reaches a point when their performance suffers and failure persists. Very few understand why or how to prevent it.
Additional Reading you might enjoy:
- 12 Successful Leadership Principles That Never Grow Old
- A Leadership Manifesto: A Guide To Greatness
- How to Succeed as A New Leader
- 12 of The Most Common Lies Leaders Tell Themselves
- 4 Proven Reasons Why Intuitive Leaders Make Great Leaders
- The One Quality Every Leader Needs To Succeed
- The Deception Trap of Leadership
Of Lolly’s many awards and accolades, Lolly was designated a Top-50 Leadership and Management Expert by Inc. magazine. Huffington Post honored Lolly with the title of The Most Inspiring Woman in the World. Her writing has appeared in HBR, Inc.com, Fast Company (Ask The Expert), Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, and others. Her newest book, The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness has become a national bestseller.