The ability to make the right decisions is central to good leadership.
What many leaders fail to realise is that decision making is a skill that can be improved and refined just like any other.
While some people are more naturally predisposed to make confident decisions in a timely fashion, this does not necessarily signify a good decision maker.
Here is a step by step guide to improving your decision making skills:
- Always ask yourself if you are making the best decision or the most readily available decision
- Reflect upon whether you have all of the relevant information upon which to base your decision
- If the stakes are high, allocate a proportionate chunk of your time to considering all possibilities. If necessary map out all of the potential outcomes and speculate on how your competitors may react
- Acknowledge what you currently don’t know and what information you can’t find out. This will strengthen your final decision
- Analyse times in the past that your decision making has been poor. Aim to identify any flaws in your decision making process
- Be aware of your gut instinct – sometimes it can be your saviour – but learn to differentiate it from your logical thought processes
