Making
decisions
The
leader is a person that doesn’t
hesitate when he has to make decisions:
He
knows when the right moment is.
His
decisions are carried out after spending a long time reflecting on
the issue.
When
a question comes up (opportunity, problem, etc) the leader has sometimes
more or less time to analyze, depending on the urgency.
The
leader will use all the time he has available to find out information,
study the topic in depth, get opinions, discuss, analyse alternatives
(everything possible) and their predictable consequences.
Whilst
the leader is thinking about the decision he is free to change his
mind, he does not have to maintain his original point of view, he
doesn’t have to fear that changing his opinion in front of his
collaborators can seem a sign of incoherence.
It
is a time to analyse and a time to try and reach the best decision.
The
leader will like his team to participate in the decision making. This
way the people can defend their points of view. During the deliberation
phase the leader should favour discussions and accept discrepancies.
One
subordinate that says YES to everything the boss thinks is a person
that doesn’t give the company anything.
However,
once a decision has been made there will not be any time for discrepancies,
the team should act as a whole and support the leader.
The
leader should worry about dominating the topics he has to tackle and
not base his thoughts exclusively on the opinion of the experts.
The
leader doesn’t have to be a specialist in every topic (this
would be impossible), but he should have a solid knowledge of most
of them.
This
will allow him to maintain an independent point of view, have a criterion
and be able to value the opinion of the experts.
The
leader will act with haste: as soon as a problem comes up, the leader
should get to work and face the problem with diligence.
It
is necessary to face up to the problems immediately, the leader can
not let them fester (a small unsolved problem can turn into a delicate
matter).
The
leader will also demand this diligence from his collaborators.
The
leader knows that there will be a moment when he will have to make
a decision, that he can not delay it, although he may not have all
of the information that he would have liked.
The
leader knows how to make uncertain decisions.
The
leader does not delay making decisions and he does not hurry.
There
are people that prefer to make decisions quickly to avoid the uncomfortable
period of uncertainty. On the other hand, the leader prefers to use
all the time available to analyse the subject in depth.
A
quality that characterizes the leader is his disposition, when it
is necessary he can make unpopular decisions, difficult decisions
which may even affect people that are close by.
The
leader should sail for the good of the company (this is his mission)
and he should try and ignore the fact that he might affect people
close by.
The
leader is not participating in a popularity contest.
Once
the decision has been made the leader can no longer hesitate, it is
time to act, to put things into practice.
The
majority of decision the leader makes are the right ones.
A
professional career can not be built on repeated failure.
However,
the leader accepts that sometimes the decisions can be wrong.
From
these mistakes the leader will try to get pertinent conclusions, analyzing
the motive of these mistakes with the view to make sure they don’t
happen in the future.
Finally,
to point out that the leader is not only a person that makes decisions,
but he also chooses as collaborators, people that also know how to
make them.
