By early February, everyone had completed their planning and had already built budgets that now exceeded the targeted cuts. When January came, he felt people were already too focused on closing out the year with final reports and the extra work of planning for the new fiscal year. In November, he decided that ruining people’s holidays with the news would be cruel.
In one organization I worked with, an executive was given four months to prepare his department for significant budget cuts that would go into effect when the next fiscal year began on March 1. I hate to add to their stress.” The real issue is that many leaders don’t want to disappoint their people. I’ve heard leaders say things like, “Morale is already low. “I’m being considerate of others.” For some leaders, the thought of estranging those they lead with a difficult call is paralyzing. By understanding the consequences of these excuses, you can work to avoid them. In my 30 years working with executives, I’ve heard leaders commonly use three rationalizations for putting off difficult decisions. In our ten-year longitudinal study of more than 2,700 leaders, 57% percent of newly appointed executives said that decisions were more complicated and difficult than they expected. And as a leader gets more senior, the need to make hard calls only intensifies. In fact, hard decisions often get more complicated when they’re deferred. In an effort not to upset others or lose status in the eyes of their followers, they concoct sophisticated justifications for putting off difficult decisions, and the delay often does far more damage than whatever fallout they were trying to avoid. Too many leaders avoid making tough calls. Focus on making timely decisions that keep the work moving forward. Your organization watches how you make decisions, and your behavior shapes the culture for others. But while that may seem egalitarian, in fact it’s the opposite of fairness. Managers often want to avoid singling out their star performers, or put off holding their under-performers accountable. A third common reason for delayed decision-making was a desire to be fair. But taking action in the face of incomplete data is an executive’s job. First, a desire to be kind often encouraged leaders to put off making, or delivering, a decision they knew would be unpopular, but this only increased people’s pain in the long run. A second problem was an obsession with making the absolute best decision some leaders delayed decision-making to gather more data. In particular, three challenges stood out. In a ten-year longitudinal study of more than 2,700 leaders, 57% percent of newly appointed executives said that decisions were more complicated and difficult than they expected. The delay often does far more damage than whatever fallout they were trying to avoid.
Too many leaders avoid making tough calls.
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