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by Kelly Riggs
One of the more important tasks that managers are responsible for is making decisions.
Short-term, long-term, reactive, strategic, technical, critical or mundane – they come in all shapes and sizes. However, all managers are not created equal when it comes to making decisions.
In fact, according to the research data, it appears that many employees have a less than stellar opinion of the soundness of the decisions made by company leaders.
“Leaders of organizations, as well as government leaders, need to be mindful of the importance of making clear-cut, well thought-out decisions. Unfortunately, many organizational leaders do not do a particularly good job of this. Our research shows that only one out of two employees believes the leader of his organization makes sound decisions…
If employees trust their leaders and believe they make sound decisions, they will follow them even when they don’t agree with their decisions. The key is that they believe their leaders can provide them with a clear, consistent direction.”
I think I’m on safe ground to say that it cannot be good for any organization when only half of employees believe that corporate leaders make good decisions. Confidence suffers. Engagement suffers. And, as a result, performance must also eventually suffer as well.
The question is, why would employees have that opinion of managers?
Consider these possibilities:
As you can see, there are a number of reasons why employees might not trust the decisions of their leaders – and when employees don’t trust leadership, things start to go sideways.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that you fall in the good half of decision-makers, the one-half of leaders who are considered to be good decision makers. Assuming your decision-making skills are, in fact, solid, one item that is often overlooked during the decision-making process is the communication of those decisions to the organization.
Organizational trust can be eroded by the ineffective communication of a good decision almost as much as a poor decision alone. In fact, one of the most consistent complaints from employees within an organization is that leadership fails to communicate about critical decisions. And, quite often, they fail to explain the reasoning behind those decisions.
Look at the list above again. When decisions appear to be inconsistent or contradictory or flawed, it creates trust issues, and if you fail to communicate the “why” behind the decision, you open the door to those perceptions.
This is particularly true if your decision creates change for employees.
One of the more common mistakes in decision-making is to fail to consider every department, every employee, and every function that will be affected by a decision. The failure to communicate effectively during change creates an enormous disconnect with each impacted employee. Just how much depends on how often you fail to communicate and how disengaged your people are already.
Here are a few basic communication suggestions to consider:
Don’t just work to improve your decisions. As important as that is, it is just as important to take the time to communicate those decisions to all involved.
The reality is that poor communication of decisions
Kelly Riggs is a business performance coach and founder of the Business LockerRoom. A former national Salesperson of the Year and serial entrepreneur, Kelly is a recognized thought leader in the areas of sales, management leadership, and strategic planning. He serves clients ranging from small, privately held companies to Fortune 500 firms. Kelly has written two books: “1-on-1 Management™: What Every Great Manager Knows That You Don’t” and “Quit Whining and Start SELLING! A Step-by-Step Guide to a Hall of Fame Career in Sales.”
