Luda Kopeikina – an experienced business leader, scholar, and author has conducted studies on the decision-making process of leaders and drew some conclusions in her book “The Right Decision Every Time.” point: How to get definitive decisions and perfect clarity?” He pointed out some harmful habits that affect the decision-making skills of leaders.
1.Do multiple tasks at the same time
Although it is advised by many people to do many things to save time. However, the reality is that multitasking makes leaders' minds scattered, and they don't have enough focus for effective decision-making.
Great leaders or great athletes often have an opposite habit that is very beneficial to their decision-making skills: focusing on one thing at a time. Professional athletes often know that when physical and mental resources are concentrated, the power to carry out their task is immense.
2.Work whenever possible and work more
This is also a common habit of many people, with the mindset that the harder you work, the better. In fact, the opposite shows that working more and more does not necessarily bring higher efficiency, which can make work efficiency decrease, even make leaders exhausted.
The new trend today is “working smarter, not harder”, simplifying work so that leaders can reduce some of their distractions and focus on key points for better decision-making. Moreover, besides work, they also need time for other relationships, as well as time to rest and regenerate energy.
3.Always compete with others
Some leaders often make decisions based on competition with someone, be it a rival business or another leader. Competition can bring certain positive points, especially motivation to strive. However, if you constantly use this habit to measure work progress, what leaders receive is often stressful, negative emotions due to chasing goals that are out of control, while others often experience negative emotions, ignoring internal forces or the organization's own goals.
4.Make decisions while emotions are high
Emotions are one of the most important factors in decision-making and are the driving force behind human behavior. However, with the habit of making decisions when the emotional state is out of control, leaders will often regret their decisions. When emotions are high, whether positive or negative (too worried or too angry or too excited…), it will also limit people's ability to think about problems, making the problem unrecognizable. complete and unbiased. Therefore, many people have given the advice: "Don't make promises when you are happy and don't make decisions when you are sad/angry".
It can be seen that decision-making skills are essential skills of leaders and in order to make good decisions, leaders must practice to achieve the "state of clarity", i.e. having enough space, time to consider and enough focus to make decisions. Therefore, in addition to avoiding the aforementioned harmful habits, leaders should also develop other positive habits such as always defining clear goals, determining the context and scope of decisions, Reduce choices for the best decision-making efficiency.
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