Making Tough Decisions with The Head and The Heart (Part 1)

Letting your feelings take the lead can be helpful at times, but it shouldn't be your default approach. You've got to know when to lead with your head, when to lead with your heart, and when to strike a balance between the two. Often, especially if we're new to leading, we focus so much on the immediate needs of our people that we delay making difficult decisions. Or we let our emotions get the best of us and don't make the right calls. I've been guilty of this.

Ideally, we would let our feelings come into play at the right moment. It's very tough to do, and some days I can do it better than others. When I was coming up, a manager once told me, "You're too talented to let your emotions get in the way." That may have been one of the greatest lessons I have learned the hard way.

Knowing me, I probably argued with him. But I did step back. And I reflected. And I could see why he would make that comment to me. I really did have to learn how to set those emotions aside and learn how to inject them in at the right time. I learned how to listen and receive feedback, and how to put my voice in the room in a way that others can hear.

Life isn't always cut and dried. Sometimes you need to let your emotions guide you; other times, you need a mix of logic and feeling. We don't want to become callous, but don't let emotions keep you from making tough, necessary calls.

Too often we believe that every decision we make should feel comfortable to us. But I'm not sure that's true. Tough decisions should be tough to make. If you feel 100% peaceful about it, that's a red flag. You risk becoming callous when you get too comfortable.

The goal isn't to feel great about hard choices. It's to know deep down that you did the work, you made the best call you could, and you helped your team through it as much as possible. When you know that you've been holding your deliberations, when you know you've done the best to allow people to land as well as they can, then you have earned your peace. You're not necessarily at peace over your decision, but you can have peace over how you arrived at it. You can have peace over how you executed it and feel peace over how you're trying to keep moving forward.

Join me next week for more thoughts on this topic.