A Good Leader - Empowers Others to Make Better Choices

We often think in terms of the leader as guiding a factory of decisions.

Whether people are in the limelight or not, they nevertheless have an opportunity to bring a big-picture perspective to every choice and consider the consequences not just for themselves but for their colleagues, organizations, and, ultimately, the world.

What does good leadership look like in business?

A leader’s success depends not just on making good decisions but on helping other people do so as well. By encouraging others to make wiser, more ethical choices, the impact of solid decision-making ripples out in an organization.

Leader who gently encourages you to make a good choice that would lead to increased innovation and happiness. Similar decision nudges related to hiring, choosing work assignments, and organizing teams.

Leaders should put themselves in others’ shoes - How can people become both better decision-makers and leaders?

Leader who outline specific strategies, many of which call for staying flexible while listening to others:

1. Consider the perspective of others. If managers want to make better decisions, they must strive to understand their employees’ point of view.
2. Think multiple steps ahead. Leaders need to consider how encouraging certain behaviors will play out over time, even when they cannot predict future events.

Resist getting cocky - As leaders ascend in the organizational hierarchy, they often become increasingly confident, believing their ideas are the right ones. But that’s a mistake.

Anytime a leader misattributes the reasons for why they got where they are, ignoring the luck component and instead believing, "I'm in this position of authority because I'm so brilliant and I'm so smart," they will be tempted to give too much credence to their intuition and listen too little to the perspectives of others, especially their critics.

Ask what’s missing - Leaders need to seek out the people within the organization who disagree with them and ask what they can learn. That can help reduce the overconfidence leaders are more prone to as they advance in their careers.

Look at the long game - Short-term outcomes are bound to destroy long-term value. Lots of leaders have the mindset that competition is good, and we certainly agree that competition?is?good in some contexts. But if there's too much competition within organizations, that destroys the opportunity to create value for the overall organization. Parts of your organization are competing when they should be creative problem-solving.

Value diversity. Better decisions are made when the decision-makers come from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. When you average the opinions of a set of people, especially a set of well-informed people, you will get closer to the truth than just trying to pick the person who is most expert or who is the highest paid person in the organization.

It’s important to be deliberative in decision-making by conducting experiments and collecting data. Underneath it all, a leader needs a moral compass rooted in the notion that a good decision works toward the collective good.

Leaders having a broader view to maximize not what their bonus is going to be based on the share price, but to think about a broader element of all the employees, all people in the community. The larger you think about the relevant circle, the more ethical you can be in terms of creating overall value.