5 Things To Consider When Making A Major Decision

Many readers have written in and requested more information on how to make better decisions. Over the next month, we will look at ways you can make better decisions and feel more confident in those decisions.

Every leader constantly makes decisions. From who to hire or fire to where to spend money in the business to how they will approach their team members, leaders lives are about decisions.

People sitting around a brown, wooden table

Photo by Thomas Drouault

The failure to decide on a course of action will derail a leader from making an impact. Leaders have to make decisions.

But what do you need to consider when making a decision? What thoughts should a leader think when deciding on a course of action?

Today, we’re going to look at 5 things to consider when making a major decision.

5 Things To Consider When Making A Major Decision

1. Consider who your decision will affect:

You don’t lead in a vacuum. You have a team, an organization, vendors, etc who are counting on you.

Every decision you make will affect those you lead and do business with. This is true whether you’re deciding to hire a new employee, drafting a marketing strategy, or using a registered agent in multiple states. You have to consider who will be affected by your decisions, and what the long and short-term consequences may be.

You have to consider who will be affected by your decisions.

To figure this out, you can create a quick flow chart showing you who will be affected by the decision you’re going to make. This can open your eyes to the far-reaching impact of your decisions.

You may soon discover your decision will affect:

  • Yourself
  • Your immediate team
  • Three people in accounting
  • The office vendor you’re behind in payments to

Not to mention all of the family members of these individuals. Yeah… you need to consider those people as well.

Every decision you make will affect a whole host of people.

2. Consider what actions will need to be done:

Much like the number of people you will affect because of your decisions, you will also have to consider what will need to be done because of your decisions. Your decisions will require yourself and others to put their efforts into the direction of those decisions.

Some of those actions may be hiring new staff, finding a new source of business funding, or resetting the layout of your office building (like when you realize the open office environment is bad for team members). Every decision will require action on someone’s part.

Consider what actions will need to be done in order to make your decision come to life.

3. Consider where the money will come from for your decision:

Eek… This is a scary one to consider. Your decision will more than likely require cash. You have to consider where this money will come from.

Will you cut the budget in IT to feed the beast in production? Are you going to take money from Human Resources and allocate their budget to maintenance?

Think about the financial impact of your decision.

4. Consider the emotional cost of your decision:

Not only will there be a financial cost to your decision, there will also be an emotional cost to your decision. Some of the emotional costs will be heavy.

If you have to fire Mary, her firing may weigh heavy on you because you know Mary’s husband, Tom. Tom and Mary are both awesome people but Mary had to go.

There is emotional costs to your decisions. Be ready to deal with these costs.

5. Consider the long-term impact of your decision:

Every decision will have an immediate impact. Every decision will also have a long-term impact. These long-term impacts are harder to see and understand.

Using the example of Mary’s firing in the previous thing to consider, her firing may be a quick and easy way to reduce employee overhead. But what of the long-term impact?

You may now need to hire someone with more experience in the future. In the meantime, her responsibilities are either picked up by someone else or are swept under the rug. When a new hire is welcomed to the team, she’ll already be behind.

Your decisions will have a long-term impact. Consider the impact of your decisions.

Question: What other areas or things should a leader consider when making decisions? Share your wisdom in the comments below.

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