7 ways decision-making is hard & 5 things Coach-Leaders do instead

Okay, let’s do this. Here are seven hard truths about why making decisions in leadership is harder, more stressful and painful than it should be:

1. You’re worried about being liked by EVERYBODY
2. You’re reacting to a crisis, risk or tension, and not the whole picture
3. You’ve mis-interpreted “wanting to be heard” as “wanting to be involved”
4. You’re resisting the fact that it’s YOU who needs to make the final decision
5. You’ve not kept people updated
6. You didn’t socialise your process or final decision idea early enough
7. You’ve backed yourself into the Committee Paralysis Corner

Any one of these will throw your decision-making into free fall. A combination of these and you might be tearing your hair out, wondering why you’re doing this job, or looking for an escape route.

Decision-making is about making balanced, risk-assessed choices that are best for the team, the organisation or the customer. As such, you need a strategy and a process to keep things running smoothly and to make a strong decision quickly.

Using their coach-leadership skills to explore, clarify and take confident actions, here’s what Coach-Leaders do:

#1 — Craft your strategy like it’s a project

Stop worrying about being liked and craft your strategy for decision-making just like it’s a project. Coach-Leaders know that, in the absence of a strategy, their insecurities and feelings are going to drive all their behaviours and actions, which creates even more risk.?

Focusing on what’s right for the team, the organisation or the customer surfaces the most important criteria for making the best decision. When you have a strategy, you’ll feel more confident in yourself and those negative voices in your head will subside.

#2 — Expand your field of vision

Under stressful conditions, your field of vision narrows, your communication drops off, and you make decisions from a place of fear. Work with your coach to unpack it all, expand your awareness of what the root cause is, and build your approach from a place of clarity, generosity and a balanced evaluation of risks and priorities.

Coach-Leaders also understand that there is value in socialising their approach to their different audiences to gauge buy-in and surface additional risks that they (the Coach-Leader) need to factor into their final decision.

#3 — Gather evidence of what is critical

There are stakeholders and there are stakeholders. We can wrongly assume that their expressions of frustration are signs that they want to be part of the solution. Some want to be heard but don’t want to commit any time to it or don’t have any ideas to contribute. Some would be happy for others to fix it. And some have a critical business reason for being involved.?

As a Coach-Leader, you need to invest time upfront to gather evidence of what’s true, find out the actual level of commitment, what the risks and priorities are, and who really needs to be involved based on valid needs.

Everyone else probably needs to be on your status update list, and that is sufficient to keep people moving forward with you and to secure their support for your final decision.?

Speaking of which…

#4 — Accepting that YOU make the final decision

In their actions, many leaders push out the responsibility to others or put off making the decision.?Sometimes group decision-making is the right thing to do. Sometimes, truly, the responsibility is yours alone.

Coach-Leaders get clear in their heads and in their strategy (see 1 above) whose input they need and why, knowing that the final decision is theirs because that is what they are responsible for in their leadership role.

With this clarity, when they invite stakeholders and interested parties to be part of the decision-making process, they articulate very clearly what they need from them, how their input will be evaluated, and the extent to which they are part of the final decision… if any!?

It’s okay to say,

“I value your perspective and experience on the risks / priorities / opportunities, and I want to hear from you so I can make the best decision for the team / organisation / customer.”

Many leaders find themselves backed into Committee Paralysis Corner because they kind of left it vague to what extent others really have a say in the final decision, or they didn’t really have a plan for how to tackle it. (Read on for how to get unstuck.)

If the decision really is someone else’s, then why are you involved? What value are you adding? What could be better?

#5 — Hit reset & re-contract the way forward

Sometimes, for all the reasons above, for reasons outside our own control or simply because we didn’t handle an event in the best way (it happens!), we find ourselves stuck in the decision-making process.

Coach-Leaders go back to the drawing board, revisit their strategy, update it with new facts, risks and opportunities, and then go again.

To all the people who have been involved so far (including those they are updating), Coach-Leaders craft their messaging to the different audiences explaining the following:

• What’s happened so far
• Why the need for a different approach
• How things will look going forward
• An apology for any inconvenience
• An invitation to ask them questions any time
• What their ask is this time around

This is how you re-contract so you can reset expectations, rebuild momentum and get to that stronger decision quicker.

Sehaam Cyrene PCC — The COACH/LEAD? Coach

I teach leaders to use powerful coaching skills from one conversation to the next.?

COACH/LEAD? is my liberating leadership style that best equips leaders for today's challenges and a healthier working world.

My CPD Certified Programme, Leaders Who Coach? is 5-Star Rated with 10/10 NPS by graduating leaders at Accenture, Amplience, bol-com, Buffer, Cancer Research UK, Claranet, elastic, ESB Networks, JP Morgan Chase, Moo, Publicis Sapient, Recycleye, Sainsbury's, Thales, Vortexa and more. "Transformational!" "Game-changer!" "Secret sauce to high-performing businesses."

My Better Conversations Rulebook: Questions & Phrases Practised Daily by Leaders Who Coach? is an Amazon #1 Best Seller.

Need my help? Get in touch.

Subscribe to my? ?? COACH/LEAD? Newsletter ?? for more coach-leadership advice and techniques.