Taking Ownership of Your Decisions as a Business Leader

One of the biggest failings you often see with modern leaders is that they simply don’t want to take responsibility for their decision-making. As leaders, we often have to make tough decisions, which don’t always turn out how we planned. We also need to be mindful of how our decisions will affect others. Whether you’re in charge of a small team of people or an entire company, your choices will impact others’ lives. Therefore, you need to be ready to take ownership of those choices. However, many leaders refuse to follow this advice, blaming others for their failures and refusing to reflect on what their choices will mean for other people.?

Elon Musk is an interesting example here. For example, he tends to handle his decision-making with great clarity and confidence, which is vital for getting your message across and establishing yourself as a capable leader. He also tends to let results drive his decisions, demonstrating a sense of practicality. However, he tends to create challenges for his company because he often makes decisions with little consideration for how they’ll impact others. Musk openly admits that he acts impulsively rather than having a strategy in many cases. Most leaders cannot operate like this; while Musk’s boldness often suits his needs, it tends to leave those who rely on him nervous.?

There is no simple path toward being a leader who takes ownership of their choices, but a few adjustments to one’s leadership style can make this behavior more natural.?

Making Educated Choices & Democratizing Decision-Making

The first step to properly taking ownership of your decisions is to make more educated decisions in the first place. When deciding, evaluate the risks involved if you take action and if you fail to take action. Virtually all decision-making comes with some degree of risk. However, considering all of the possible scenarios that could play out and making choices that most clearly align with your values helps reduce the chances of failure or minimize its impact.?

Additionally, you need to avoid accidentally building an echo chamber; otherwise, you risk pushing out dissenting voices and prioritizing yourself over others. Every good leader knows the value of surrounding themselves with people who have different opinions and experiences than they do. If you don’t listen to those around you and assume you’re always right, you leave yourself wide open for failure and allow your biases to get in the way of success. Collaboration often leads to the best outcomes, so be open to learning something and getting other people involved in the decision-making process.??

Along with letting other people get involved in the decision-making process, it is also important to know when to delegate decision-making to someone else. Every person wants to have more ownership over their choices, so it’s important to give employees a sense of ownership over their responsibilities. After all, the best way to keep employees engaged with their work is to make that work more meaningful. As a result, don’t be afraid to delegate. Besides, it isn’t in your best interest to hoard decisions and try and solve everything yourself. Instead, focus your energy on important and consequential decisions, leaving mini decisions in the hands of other capable leaders.?

However, if you want to get others involved in decision-making, you need to empower them to feel capable of contributing something of value. A thoughtful leader doesn’t just focus on their success or the company's success, but the people in the company as well. Consider how you can challenge employees to build their skill sets and get them out of their comfort zones. Ask them what their dreams are, both in terms of work and personal lives, looking for opportunities to help achieve them. By taking this more humanistic approach, you improve morale and productivity and make people more interested in contributing to the decision-making process, which also helps you.?

When you’re more considerate of how your choices affect others and more willing to get people involved in decision-making, you avoid many modern leadership failures. No matter how capable or confident a leader is in their decisions, if they aren’t considering how those choices affect the people around them, they are setting themselves up for failure in the long term. It’s critical to be more mindful when making big decisions, and don’t be afraid to let other people get involved. When making that decision, make sure you understand the risk, have evaluated the information of those around you, and understand the effects of the decision.? Then the leader owns the decision!?