One thing that will hold a leader and his lead­er­ship team back is the inabil­ity to make sound and timely deci­sions. We will not only suf­fer pro­fes­sion­ally but the emo­tional drain and stress that comes from hav­ing too many deci­sions pend­ing can really take its toll on us. Note: This post is part of a series on Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity. Click here for the pre­vi­ous step.

A few years back, our past COO and Exec­u­tive Coach, Dan Meub, shared a great anal­ogy with me. He said that I needed to envi­sion that I was sit­ting in the mid­dle of an octa­gon shaped room. Each wall had a door, and each door was open. Each of those open doors allowed for the heat in the room to escape — my energy was escap­ing out all of the doors. He coached me that I needed to close the doors in a more timely fash­ion. The les­son stuck and since that time I have coached many lead­ers to improve their deci­sion mak­ing abil­ity by “clos­ing the doors.”

Here are 5 steps to help you make bet­ter and more timely deci­sions.

1. Always know what prob­lem you are try­ing to solve. Often times, we can lose track of the real issue, oppor­tu­nity or prob­lem. Fight to gain real clar­ity on the issue so that you are pre­pared to gather the right data and input to solve that problem.
2. Get just enough data. Too many times lead­ers fail to make the right deci­sions in the nec­es­sary time frames because they think they need more data. The truth of the mat­ter is that most of the time, more data will not cause our deci­sion to change. Lead­ers need to trust their gut and rely on enough data and be com­fort­able with their past expe­ri­ences, their wis­dom and their intu­ition to pull the trig­ger at the right time. This is true for lead­er­ship teams as well.
3. Get enough input from the right peo­ple. Don’t over-complicate the process by think­ing that get­ting more people’s thoughts will bring you clar­ity. Often times, lead­ers will find them­selves fur­ther par­a­lyzed by get­ting too many opin­ions and perspectives.
4. Use your road maps. When mak­ing life deci­sions, take a good look at your Life Plan. When look­ing at tak­ing a risk or mak­ing a big deci­sions with your com­pany or team, take a good look at your Busi­ness Vision and Busi­ness Plan. If the prob­lem or oppor­tu­nity does not line up with your guid­ing doc­u­ments, then chances are they will take you off track. You put a lot of thought and time into your road maps. and this is pre­cisely what they are for — to help you make the best proac­tive and inten­tional decisions.
5. Know that there is always a cer­tain degree of risk in most big deci­sions. If you knew the out­come with com­plete cer­tainty, then the energy door would be easy to close, the deci­sion easy to make. The best lead­ers are okay with the pos­si­bil­ity of fail­ing if they have done the above and have a track record of mak­ing the right deci­sions. So here is a key: the more right and timely deci­sions we make, the more con­fi­dence we have. Use this con­fi­dence (and the steps above) to help you con­tinue to make bet­ter and more timely decisions.

Fol­low­ing these steps will help you to close the doors in a timely man­ner with the out­comes you desire. Ulti­mately this will enable you to have more time to think about the future and exe­cute the plans to get you there.

Note: This post is part of a series on Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity.
Step 1: Own Your Role
Step 2: Be Healthy
Step 3: 6 Steps to Improve Your Think­ing
Step 4: Be Hun­gry and Hum­ble
Step 5: You Need a Road Map

Related posts:

1. You Need a Road Map (Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity Series — Step 5 of 8)
2. Be Hun­gry and Hum­ble (Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity Series — Step 4 of 8)
3. 6 Steps to Improve Your Think­ing (Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity Series — Step 3 of 8)
4. 8 Steps to Increase Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity (Series)
5. Close the Door

Tags: Decision Making, Leadership

This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 7:42 am and is filed under Featured, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.