WHY DO GOOD LEADERS STILL MAKE BAD DECISIONS?

Some of the worst business decisions are not made by incompetent people.

They are made by highly intelligent, experienced and successful leaders.

Why?

Because experience improves judgement, but it can also create confidence in assumptions that are no longer true.

As leaders move higher, the consequences of decision-making multiply. A decision made at the frontline may affect a transaction. A decision made in the C-suite can affect thousands of employees, millions in capital and years of organisational direction.

Here are five disciplines that can significantly improve executive decision quality:

1. Separate facts from assumptions

Before making a major decision, ask:

"What do we know and what are we merely assuming?"

That distinction alone can change the quality of a leadership discussion.

2. Create constructive disagreement

If everyone in the room agrees too quickly, the leader should become curious.

Strong executive teams don't eliminate disagreement. They make it safe to challenge assumptions without making disagreement personal.

3. Ask what would make the decision wrong

Most teams spend their time proving why an idea will work.

Exceptional teams also ask:

"Under what circumstances could this fail?"

4. Separate reversible from irreversible decisions

Not every decision deserves months of analysis.

When a decision can easily be reversed, speed often matters more than perfection. When consequences are difficult to reverse, depth of thinking matters more than speed.

5. Conduct a decision post-mortem

Don't evaluate only outcomes.

Evaluate the quality of thinking that produced them.

A good decision can occasionally produce a poor outcome and a poor decision can occasionally produce a lucky one.

The leadership question, therefore, isn't simply:

"Are we making decisions quickly?"

It is:

"Have we built an organisation capable of making high-quality decisions without depending on a handful of senior leaders?"

Because one of the greatest indicators of leadership maturity is not the quality of decisions a CEO makes.

It is the quality of decisions the organisation can make without the CEO.