Overview
The ability to make a good decision in a timely manner – a key management and leadership competency – is contingent upon knowing the situational variables:
- Decision significance
- Importance of commitment
- Leader expertise
- Likelihood of commitment
- Goal alignment
- Likelihood of disagreement
- Group expertise
- Interaction constraints
- Team competence
- The value of time
- The value of development
With these variables identified, the next step is to maximize quality by matching normative behaviors along a decision effectiveness continuum – ranging from totally autocratic to totally participative. A high-quality decision considers the analytical and impersonal factors behind the process. Decision effectiveness is consistent with the intelligent consumption of all available information concerning the probability of achieving one’s goals – provided the decision is properly and effectively implemented.
The ability to get a decision implemented is a key element of decision effectiveness. Many high-quality or analytically sound decisions have failed as a result of poor or ineffective implementation. The implementation of decisions is affected by the ability of others to understand them first, followed by the extent to which they are committed to carry out their directives.
