Eyes Open

a post on decisions and empathy in trying times

Last week, I talked about decisions and decision making. A natural follow up is to discuss the results of decisions - and to acknowledge that sometimes decisions have a big impact on people. If you’ve worked with me for any amount of time, you will have heard me share a quote from Leadership On the Line (Heifetz et al)

“Leadership is disappointing people at a level they can absorb.”

To me, this line is a little funny in how true it is, and lines like this stick with me. Similarly, in Read This Before Our Next Meeting, Al Pittampalli says,

“What happens if I make a decision not everyone agrees with? Congratulations, you’re a leader”

As a leader, you may think that trying to make everyone happy all the time is your goal. It’s not. In fact, this approach leads to misery. The idea with the Pittampalli quote is that trying to make decisions by consensus is nearly impossible, and takes forever. Instead, take the data and input you have from the people who have the most context and input, disc…