Highly skilled leaders know good decision-making requires input from their employees.
Leaders are charged with making decisions. That is the fundamental premise of leadership. Those decisions usually end up leading to some form of action that must be taken, either by the leader themselves or their people—in most cases, their people. Now, the leader is not all-knowing. Far from it. Some leaders have that mindset: I’m all knowing—I’m the great and powerful Oz! However, in practice, that’s rarely true.
Even highly skilled leaders can’t know everything—and they can’t guarantee that every decision they make is the right one. However, they can be reasonably certain that the decision they’re making is the right one if that decision is well-informed. That means it needs to be made taking into account the context, with adequate information. That information rarely comes from the leader; rather, it comes from the leader’s people, the boots-on-the-ground workers. Empowering those people to provide information is the key to effective decision-making.
When employees’ opinions are ignored, organizations risk paralysis
For a decision to be effective, it further needs to be actioned in a practical way. If the leader makes a decision and people start to act on it, and then new information comes to light, and the leader says, “Hang on a minute, we need to press pause and pivot in a different direction,” the whole organization grinds to a halt. Not only that, but the leader’s decision-making ability is called into question. After a false start or two, leadership’s decisions will no longer be perceived as final, and the organization will become inefficient.
The repercussions may not be apparent at first, especially as this kind of start-and-stop process may take weeks to reveal itself. However, with time—especially with repeated instances—the paralyzing effects tend to become apparent. That’s when people start to get stuck.
The employees assume that leadership’s decisions aren’t necessarily final so, when a decision is taken and employees need to act, they may do so with less conviction than they would have before. Trust in leadership begins to erode.
At the same time, leadership may succumb to self-doubt; they may express directives like, “This is the direction we’re going to go in for now.” For an employee who’s about to start walking in that direction, that isn’t very inspiring. Nobody wants to put in a lot of work only to have to undo it later.
With both leadership and their people succumbing to paralysis, the organization is inhibited—getting on with it and getting the job done proves increasingly difficult, even impossible. And it all started with one wrong decision.
The question then becomes, how can leaders make decisions with conviction and with the assurance that the decision they make is as close as possible to the right one? The goal is, first, to make a decision that sticks, so there’s no need to go back and revisit it or reverse it at a later date. The second objective is to make sure that that decision is practically actioned in a way that produces the desired result.
It starts with input. That input doesn’t come from the “great and powerful Oz” of leadership. Remember, the Wizard of Oz was just a man behind a curtain. Rather, it comes from employees. And for employees to provide that input, they must be empowered.
Leaders who gather employee input make smarter—and more actionable—decisions
When leaders gather input, two things happen. Firstly, they learn things they would not otherwise have learned—details and data that can help support informed, relevant decisions. Secondly, the people giving the input have a higher degree of ownership in the outcome of the subsequent decision, because they participated in the process of making that decision. The best place to get input for a decision is from the people who are ultimately going to be charged with doing the work to implement that decision.
Highly skilled leaders don’t just say, “This is what we’re going to do.” They go to their people and say, “This is what we’re trying to accomplish. We’re going to have to make some decisions. What do you think? What do you recommend? How would you tackle it?” When that happens, the leader’s decision is more rooted in reality. As a result, it’s more practical and reasonable.
Further, when the leader goes to implement the decision, they have a much higher likelihood of it being implemented effectively. That’s thanks to the fact that they’ve gotten input from the people who are ultimately going to have to execute the resulting decision’s actions. Those people have been part of the decision-making process; they’re invested in it and its success. A lot of friction is eliminated when the people who have to implement that decision have a say in it.
If you follow that process of gathering input from your team, you’ll find decision-making becomes significantly easier. You can make a decision with greater confidence and, once it’s made, odds are you don’t have to revisit it. You know that the decision is final—and your team knows it’s final, too. Doubt in leadership fades. The organizational paralysis disappears. You can all get on with it and get the job done.
Now, there’s one last caveat: you may not agree with all the input you receive. You’re going to hear things you don’t like. That’s OK. You at least know what you’re walking into, because you’ve taken the time to contextualize your decision by seeking others’ thoughts.
In the process, you’ve empowered your employees. Empowerment is about giving employees a chance to contribute to the decisions that an organization makes. Without it, organizations are at risk of grinding to a halt. A lack of empowerment may not kill the business—but it certainly won’t do it any favors.
Highly skilled leaders are able to acknowledge that they aren’t the all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful Wizard of Oz—and solicit input from their teams. Being able to put aside the ego of leadership and invite others’ opinions is where the real power of leadership lies.