Leadership: Assessing Possibilities / Taking Action
Are you someone who is described as action-oriented?
Do you assess the many possible alternatives and options before ultimately taking action?
I consider that one of the most beneficial aspects of good leadership is the ability (and willingness!) to assess options quickly and efficiently and guide your team through to completion. Knowing what the most appropriate and beneficial action is can be difficult, however this model may help.
Passively waiting for others to make necessary decisions and take steps to meet a need, adds little value to your organisation and others perception of yourself.
Action matters in business!
Consciously considering the alternatives and understanding the organisational culture, potential barriers and existing situations provides the most likely scenario for success.
Additionally, the stages or steps that I consider to be the difference between successful decision-making and leadership effectiveness compared to less successful processes are:
- Understanding the issue to be solved
- Considering the options
- Assessing possible outcomes
- Narrowing the options to the clear few that add greatest benefit
- Identifying a single response and doing something with it.
After recently being asked by one of my clients what the best way to make decisions is, I developed the concept above. I hope that it assists others to understand the steps necessary to remove the feeling of being overwhelmed, as was the case for my client. He sensed that there was a better way than ‘blind hope’, however was unable to work through the many possibilities to identify the few options that could be actioned.
The ‘CoachStation Possibilities/Action’ model works best when working through and considering all of the complementary and competing priorities. The challenge is to be targeted and specific at all stages of the process. The behaviours that can maximise the impact and benefit incorporate:
- Full understanding of the problem in the first place.
- Clarity about the question you are attempting to answer. It is difficult to provide an answer to a question that has not been asked, acknowledged or understood.
- Consideration and assessment of the many alternatives (that time and common-sense allow). Don’t take the first option that comes to mind, without investigating its potential impact, value or outcomes and measuring it against other options. Assess the many to find the few!
- A process that can identify the one, most beneficial action that is most likely to provide the best result or success. Success should be measured against your original assessment of the problem or question to be resolved. Using a ‘shotgun approach’, where many actions are taken in the hope that one of them suits the need is time-consuming, costly, disheartening and displays poor decision-making capability.
- Having a reasonably clear view of what success would look like if the result intended was achieved. This requires a degree of forethought and progressive thinking, however remains one of the biggest gaps in decision making in my experience.
Let me know your questions, thoughts or successes related to decision-making and taking action. I would love to hear your stories.
