The world around us is changing constantly. What had been correct some years ago seems not to be the right approach today. This is also the case in management and leadership where the traditional top-down approach had been replaced by modern leadership methodologies. 

I personally think this way is absolutely correct as the #5T Leadership Model which I am promoting is also a collaborative leadership approach. Generally, leaders have to give the team a direction and help them to make decisions by themselves and so the team members will become good leaders almost automatically. They will keep them being motivated and go beyond their own limits which makes an organization even faster than traditional managed companies or departments.

And all companies I am working with have already made a large progress transforming the organizations into this direction: Flat hierarchies, collaborative spaces, encouraging ideas, appreciating the progress made etc. Great result!

There is only one issue when organizations are working in this way for a long time already - or the leaders did not really understand what leadership is really about: leaders unlearn making decisions! And that is an issue especially when the team is coming into critical situations where they can't help out themselves - or a timely decision is needed not missing a unique chance!

Then very clear messages and decisions are asked from the leaders. And when the manager does not deliver, the team will see that behavior in many cases as a weakness of the leader. This comes with a lack of trust, de-motivation and losing orientation. At the end, the team performance will slow down.

Why are leaders sometimes not making decisions? They are very often afraid making a wrong decision. But honestly: no decision is worse than anything else, no matter if right or wrong. Without any exception! Once a decision is made, the team and even the whole company knows again the new direction and can work accordingly: strategies will be developed and tons of unnecessary work is avoided just because everyone has just worked on how they think it is correct without or with less alignment. 

But how to avoid going into that direction? How not to unlearn making a decision? There are many tools and ways making quick, transparent and sustainable decisions, like the PUGH matrix, going into the "fly on the wall"-perspective, decision trees etc....., even flipping coins is better than doing nothing!

Want to learn more about making quick, transparent and sustainable decisions it? Don't be afraid to decide contacting me 🙂