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Interview Patty

How Effective Leaders Deal With Hard Decisions

Small Business Women Consulting in Houston

How To Deal With Hard Decisions: First, you have to recognize that there are two types of “hard” decision, each with their own unique circumstances and challenges. Identifying which one is plaguing you can help you come up with the strategies necessary to overcome it:

1. Equal choices. Equal choices boil down to two (or more) possibilities that can’t be distinguished in terms of absolute value; in effect, you’ll have multiple options, none of which seems inherently better than the others. For example, you may have an option to hire one of two people in a key leadership role in your position. One is more enthusiastic and less experienced, and the other is less enthusiastic and more experienced. Overall, their strengths and weaknesses balance out, but they’ll both offer different things to your organization.

2. Undesirable, yet obvious choices. Undesirable choices are objectively better on paper than their alternatives, but are undesirable in some way. Usually, this boils down to a decision that’s smart, practical, or even necessary in the long term, but carries short-term drawbacks or challenges. For example, you may debate firing one of your employees for the good of the company, even though it will be a hard hurdle to overcome.

The Complication of Stakes: Either of these two decisions can be complicated by the stakes involved. For example, choosing between an apple and an orange for breakfast maybe an “equal” choice for you, as there’s no clearly objective answer, yet the stakes are very low. On the other hand, choosing between long-term vendor partners may appear equal when accounting for their different advantages and disadvantages, but the stakes there are very high.

Higher stakes generally lead to higher levels of stress and decision paralysis. However, you have to filter out the pressure of stakes as much as possible to remain objective. You have to trust your logic and best judgment in any scenario, regardless of how much is at stake.

Logic Over Emotion: There’s certainly a value to emotion, so it can’t be dismissed entirely. For example, you may lean toward a certain stylistic choice for your office environment because it makes you feel calmer and more at home. But for the most part, the best business decisions are made based on logic, rather than emotion. This is because businesses are logical enterprises; they depend on mathematics, such as attaining more income than expenses, and objectively favorable exchanges between organizations.

Filtering out emotion isn’t easy, but it will help you make better decisions, or break a tie in the case of an equal-choice decision.

Seeking and Handling Advice: It’s important to challenge your assumptions when you’re having to deal with hard decisions. make a making an especially hard decision. Unfortunately, most of us have a natural form of tunnel vision that limits us to viewing things in terms of our own biases and experiences. The best way to overcome this hurdle is to ask others for advice and guidance, especially if those others are people who know more than we do, or have been through this experience before.

However, you’ll need to be careful here. You shouldn’t base your decision on any one person’s input, or let anyone else make the decision for you. This is your decision, and these outside perspectives are meant only to help you see a broader vision of the problem at hand. Take all the opinions you gather with a grain of salt, and apply them to the context of your own line of thinking.

Making the Call: There’s only so much you can do to obtain new information or new perspectives. Eventually, you’re going to have to pull the trigger and deal with hard decisions. In the business world, things move fast and intelligent risk takers are, eventually, rewarded. Because of this, it’s often better to make a questionable, or even a bad decision, rather than not making a decision at all. Keep this in mind as you continue debating your options, or remained paralyzed by the choices that lie before you. Go ahead and make the call, even if it’s a bad one, you’ll at least be able to move on faster.

Not all decisions you face are going to be easy, and there’s no way around a hard decision other than to make it. How you deal with hard decisions will speak volumes about your ability as a leader, and dictate your chances of success. Remain calm, logical, and open to outside perspectives, and you’ll find yourself making the best decisions under the hardest of circumstances.

Source: Small Business Trends

Patty Block, President and Founder of The Block Group, established her company to advocate for women-owned businesses, helping them position their companies for strategic growth. Charting the course for impactful, sustainable, profitable businesses, the beacon is control: of your strategic direction, your money, your time, your staffing, and your ability to bring in business. The Block Group brings together the people, resources and ideas that build results.

Small Business Woman Consulting in Houston.

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