The Paradox of Choice: A Leadership Imperative

Dear reader,

Welcome to this week's edition of "Elevations."?

I am fascinated by how differently people behave when given identical information, resources, or circumstances. When I worked in advertising, I believed people tended to be predictable. That was the basis for creating ads designed to direct behavior in ways that benefit the advertiser. Political campaigns bet the farm on attempting to understand how people think and feel to predict or influence how people will vote. Leaders must do the same to influence people to act in the interest of their organizations.

As I work to help solve the myriad of problems my clients face, I've come to realize that it is the people who are complex, much more so than the problems they need to manage. This complexity has profound implications for leadership, raising questions such as why do some people impulsively chase after shiny objects while others struggle with seemingly simple decisions?

This week's essay, "The Paradox of Choice," examines how making better choices can lead to better results and make you a better leader.

As always, I wish you a great week filled with insightful reflections on human behavior and leadership!

-prl

The Paradox of Choice: A Leadership Imperative

Choice is a powerful driver of human performance. What we choose to do and how we decide to do it determines what we accomplish. Our fate lies in our choices, even when we choose not to decide, allowing others or random events to lead us wherever they may take us. We can lead our lives deliberately with a sense of purpose or allow life to happen to us with whatever the world holds for us. However, the leaders who choose to accomplish things that genuinely matter make a difference in the world through their decisions. Not making deliberate choices leads to reaction rather than action.

Leonardo DaVinci wrote, “It had long come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and allowed things to happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” I love his observation for two reasons. First, for the explicit instructions it offers for success and accomplishing meaningful and significant things. But it is also the closest thing to a recipe I have seen for living a life filled with the moments of joy we discover in the things we accomplish that are meaningful to us and significant in the value we create for others. We choose what we allow.

Choices also come with problems. In his TED talk, “The Paradox of Choice,” psychologist Lawrence Schwartz suggested the likely increase in dissatisfaction people experience given the expanding number of choices they have. Choosing between two or three options is much easier than selecting from two or three dozen, as he illustrated in the case of Baskin & Robbins’ 26 flavors of ice cream. Having more choices would seem to increase the odds of people finding what pleases them, but instead, it leaves most people struggling to decide or frustrated and second-guessing their choices. His advice was to make things simple and unconfusing if you want to make people happy. Bill Clinton adopted this approach in his reminder that likely got him elected president: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Great leaders generally don’t get off the hook quite so easily. Beyond focusing your messaging and limiting what you offer, you must compellingly demonstrate that the things you choose to “happen to” are necessary and possible. It must be clear that you believe in what you do and have no choice but to accomplish whatever it takes to achieve what is needed.

There may be times when you fully believe you have no choice in the actions you take or the decisions you make. However, you may not and still must convince people that you do. You must erase or contain whatever doubt you might have that could otherwise spill out and undermine your capacity to lead others beyond their doubts and uncertainties.

I believe that people aren’t born leaders. You must learn to lead by first choosing to prepare yourself to become the person you must be and then do whatever it takes to become that person, fully believing that you genuinely have no choice.

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