The mark of a great leader is consistently being a great decider! When you think about it, all business activity really comes down to two simple things:
Making decisions and executing those decisions. Decisive leaders are made, not born.
Decisive leaders choose a direction, build buy-in, communicate that direction, and motivate people to achieve a result. In fact, making good decisions is the most important thing we can do.
Being indecisive slows the company’s growth, causing missed opportunities and employee frustration that drives turnover and disengagement.
The longer we take to decide, the longer our people continue in the wrong direction or just stand still.
Even if the results of a decision are less than desirable, we will come out knowing what works and what doesn’t, so we are able to make better decisions in the future.
Decisive leaders build good habits. Set a deadline for each decision, gather only the information you really need, and then commit and move on. Once you have decided, make sure the decision actually gets carried out. If you want to see why decisions so often stall, have a read of why actions get agreed but never completed. For some general background, there is a helpful overview on Wikipedia.
