Four Benefits of Organizational Confusion

As a leader, I don’t love confusion. But I’m learning to like it quite a bit.

The reason (I give four reasons in this new post): Confusion can equate to progress, innovation, and transformation.

7 Ways I’m Learning to “Disagree and Commit”

5 Minute Read… In 2016, Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame wrote a well-circulated article to his shareholders. You can read it here: Jeff Bezos’ Shareholder Letter. In my industry of church, the implications of his letter are equally important. My guess is any industry where leadership decisions are required would benefit from adopting a version […]

How to Make Great Decision without any Clarity

As a leader, have you ever struggled with a decision?

If you lead or have ever led anything, the answer is unequivocally “yes.” Making decisions is crucial to leading. Making decisions is an inseparable part of leadership. Leaders who cease to made decisions abdicate their leadership.

Of course, some decisions are obvious, some are more challenging, and some are absolutely daunting. The decisions leaders face during times of transitions, whether personal or organizational, are often the most difficult. The reason is simple:

Transitions bring cloudy conditions.

Great decisions are only possible when we have clarity — clarity of the situation, problem, possible solutions, and ramifications. Clarity is essential, but as every leader knows, when seasons give way to what’s next, the transition creates conditions that work directly against clear decisions.

Transitions are cloudy because they happen between what is known and what is next. What is known is often clear, but what’s next is typically new. New always has an element of unknown, and unknown is often unclear. It’s like driving our car into a dense fog. When you can barely see, it makes driving nearly impossible. If the fog grows dense enough, moving forward ceases to be a viable option.

In our car, we can always pull over and wait out the fog. But as a leader, waiting out the transition isn’t an option. And hence our decision dilemma:

How do we make great decisions in cloudy conditions?

Before we answer that question, we should acknowledge that these transition decisions are often the most important decisions we as leaders make. Both an unfortunate, yet true reality. When there is change and transition, the organization and the people therein look to leadership for stability and direction. The decisions we make during these transitions set the pace, tone, and direction for the next season. These decisions are critical. And they are uncomfortable. Because they are so cloudy.

When What You Want To Do is Different Than What You Need To Do

What makes leadership difficult?

We could probably create a laundry list of great answers.

For me, point decision-making certainly fits on the list. A level of decisiveness is required for leadership, but while some decisions are routine and simple, others are unfamiliar and complex. For me, the most difficult decisions rise when what I want to do is different than what I need to do.

Have you ever faced a decision that lived in the middle of this tension? Through my years of leading companies and churches, I’ve faced more than a few decision where what I wanted to do was different than what I needed to do. For instance, there have been times I’ve wanted to keep a staff member, but they needed to move on to new opportunities (that’s a nice way to say it, right?). There have been times I’ve wanted to include everyone on a team, but not everyone provided value to the team. There have been times when I wanted to eat chicken fingers rather than a salad (see, it works in all facets of life!).

I believe the willingness to make tough decisions is a key indicator of sustainable leadership.