The Best Leaders Make Fewer Decisions Not More

What is the responsibility of a CEO? Are you one of those who think CEOs should be responsible for every single make-or-break decision in a company? Well, you couldn’t be more wrong.  

Success in today's companies does not depend on an executive making the "big call" always. In fact, you'll find that the best executives today make fewer decisions. 

CEOs are indeed critical to the decision-making process in a company. However, the best executives are those that able to build a culture of accountability and quality decision-making throughout different teams and sections of the organization.

So, if you want to scale as a leader, your focus should be on empowering your employees to make effective decisions daily, rather than spending time making all the decisions.  

Here are some steps to take towards achieving this: 

• Communicate the values and strategies of the company to employees, so they can use their expertise and judgment to streamline decisions. 
• Let your workers know that a particular decision isn't yours to make. In this case, maintain the position of an advisor, an intellectual sparring partner and perhaps, a contrarian.  But not the final decision-maker. In a meeting regarding this particular decision, you should only speak towards the end. 
• Help your workers identify when they are stuck. You can also chip in information on what the decision should look like. 
• Build a time buffer. What I mean is, you should have a final, no-excuses-accepted date for the decision, then add at least 20% more time to that duration. 

Above all, you should learn and evolve. Don't just evaluate the outcomes of each decision. Instead, examine how the entire process went, and then continue working to build a company where everyone is equipped to make decisions for the betterment of the organization.  

And if you'd like to learn more about how artificial intelligence is helping leaders and organizations improve their decision-making processes, my book "Analytics of Life" is just published and available on Amazon. In which I talk about how utilizing the business intelligence solutions "significantly improved the decision-making capabilities" of not only the executives but also mid-level management and frontline employees.  

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