How leadership affects decision making?

In my previous post, ‘why decision making is so important in leadership and business?’ I explained the importance of decision making, and how decisiveness can affect your personal and business life as a leader. To expand on this, this post will discuss how leadership can affect the decision making of others.

During my leadership journey, over a decade now, I have worked with good leaders and bad leaders. I found that leaders come in many shapes, sizes, ages and styles, but one thing that every great leader has in common is effective decision making. Effective decision making leads to greater success, one vision working, greater motivation, more efficient working and the list goes on. Effective decision making creates a more success environment for all. Although, lack of support from your leader could stifle your ability to make effective decisions.

Great leaders must display the right behaviours of a leader. Two of those right behaviours which are key in this topic are:

• Trust
• The compass

Trust

Great leaders build connections and trust with people through listening, and displaying empathy over apathy. This is because connections equal influence. Building trust takes time, but can be broken by not seeing through your actions. Whether or not someone trusts their leader can influence the quality, quantity and effectiveness of their decision making.

Take for example, if a leader withholders vital information, second guesses your choices and ridicules your decisions, then in the future you are less like to make effective decisions on your own. You are also more likely to make less decisions. This behaviours shows a lack of trust from your leader, which in turn results in a lack of trust in your leader.

However, if your leader displays behaviours of trust, such as allowing you to make decisions, backing you if you make mistakes and supporting you as needed to make the best and most informed decision, then you are likely to become a more effective decision maker.

It is essential that leaders display trust in order to help others become better decision makers. In the end, this will make their life easier and help them see greater levels of success.

The compass

A leader is essential the ‘go-to-person’ when things get tough. Imagine yourself lost in a storm, wading through murky waters, lost in a sea of clouds and looking for a way out. What you need is a compass, something to tell you the right direction. That is a key role of a leader.

Now, applying this scenario to a business, imagine the entire project has a deadline to achieve, there is immense pressure from the client and people are starting to panic. You are responsible for making a key decision, but are unsure because it may impact the deadline – you do not need the answer, you need direction. However, your leader is avoiding you. This behaviour – lack of direction – will affect your ability to effectively make the best decision. On the other hand, if your leader was open and visible, you would be able to have a short conversation and receive the direction you need to make an informed decision with the support of your leader.

When a leader displays trust and behaves as a compass this people feel supported, are more motivated and make more effective decisions which ultimately leads to greater success.

Thank you for reading, JT