Leadership Thought #245 – Leaders Are Paid To Make the Hard Decisions

Leadership Thought #245 – Leaders Are Paid To Make the Hard Decisions

Making important decisions is a critical part of running an organization.

Leadership is rarely about doing what is easy. If the decision ends up at your desk, it means no one else can or should make it. As Harry Truman was fond of saying, “The buck stops here.” If you are delegating correctly, then your people will feel empowered to step up and make most day-to-day decisions. If you select the right people, they will be capable of using sound judgment and thinking through almost anything. However, some issues come down to leadership prerogative and accountability.

As a leader, once you have 10 or more employees, you should spend more time thinking and less time doing. This concept is challenging for many people to grasp. You arrived here because you were more proactive than others and followed through on what you said you would do.

As your company grows, the stakes will only increase, and you must accept that you can no longer do everything. What used to be simple decisions have become more nuanced and complicated. You cannot simply outwork the competition anymore, and you must also outthink and outmaneuver them. You no longer have the time to be mired in the weeds of day-to-day business actions and decision-making.

A leader should be ahead of the market curve and see things others don’t see. Today’s opportunities could be tomorrow’s nightmares. Saying “no” becomes more important than saying “yes.” Your business model will require constant refinement and can grow stale quickly. Financial risk can increase exponentially. New and established competitors will always be lurking on the horizon and testing your vulnerabilities. Your talented people will want to take more initiative and expect greater autonomy. Sadly, you will outgrow the capabilities of many loyal people; understanding and acting on this reality, while painful, is essential to sustained growth and success.

It takes both self-confidence and courage to lead an organization, but it is essential to keep your ego in check. You won’t always be right, but you should be quick to learn from your mistakes and create an environment where others do the same. The only way to grow your organization is to grow your people. The only way to grow your people is to step back and let them do their job. You already have enough on your plate that needs to be done without getting distracted by the “lower-hanging fruit” of other people’s responsibilities. Creating an environment of accountability is different than doing employees’ jobs for them.

I have a colleague who encourages his clients to put a “Post-it” on their computer screen with the question, Whose job am I doing right now?” A leader’s job is to find answers to the tough questions that are critical to his/her company’s success and survival. This doesn’t mean you still don’t act as the “closer” on big sales or ensure solid financial management or focus on employee/cultural issues or champion customer satisfaction. But it does mean you start to see these issues strategically, not tactically, as part of a larger interconnected strategy that others will have to execute.

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