Take Responsibility for Your Decisions

How does your team decide?

There are many different ways to reach a decision. Everything from full concordance (unanimous agreement on the best decision) to executive fiat (one person decides for everyone) we have lots of choices.

Centered, high performance leaders involve their people in their decisions. I've found consensus to be a robust, durable way of making decisions. But, we don't always have time (or need) for consensus.

Whatever the method of decision making, the leader must stand by the decision. No criticizing the group for its poor choice. No backing down and pulling support from a team decision. If you want to build your team, give it lots of influence on your decisions. Empower your team and get out of the way - but remember, the results are still your responsibility.

However democratic the process, centered leaders take full responsibility for the decision.

No blaming others. No blaming the process. The leader is still responsible.

What big decisions is your team facing? How will you decide?

-- Doug Smith

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"An enemy is a person whose story we have not heard." -- Gene Knudsen Hoffman Without contrary evidence it always seems like we're right. Even WITH contrary evidence we get stuck often defending our story, our view. The story may not be wrong, but it is surely incomplete. Listen. Ask questions. Understand. Learn. High performance leaders look for common ground. -- doug smith

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