Today’s Small Choices Are Tomorrow’s Results

As a leader, you have to make many difficult decisions for your organization and take responsibility for the results.

Choice refers to the deliberate act of doing or thinking one thing above another. The leader's choices and decisions carry the additional burden of impacting employees’ careers in the long run, in addition to their own. One decision might hinder or promote career development.

Morals and standards play a significant role in our judgments and choices. While the past cannot be changed, we can learn from our mistakes. Take advantage of the present as a gift, and every choice you have ever made will form the basis of your future.

Avoid regrets by making the correct decisions today. You have the freedom to do or be anything you wish.

How A Manager’s Choice Can Change the Destiny of Employees
The decisions you make for your workforce impact myriad outcomes. The law of cause and effect governs what happens after we make a decision and while many see the first-order effects, many often fail to observe the second and third-order effects of a decision.

A bad decision always has an unfavorable outcome, somewhere down the line.

We must be willing to make hard decisions if we want to enjoy the best possible results of our endeavors. Once we take ownership of how we use our freedom of choice, we can change whatever behaviors or mindsets are required to cultivate our own leadership and drive.

How Does Making Good Choices Help Managers?
People are constantly making decisions; some are simple and easy to make. However, as a manager, it is simple to feel uncertain and cautious while making big decisions.

Learning techniques for making wise choices in challenging or pressured situations is crucial. Indecision alone may negatively affect how you feel.

Even if you cannot predict how something will turn out before you decide, find solace in the truth that you have made the most informed decision available at the time - and you can always choose another, better way should one be revealed.

Ways to Make Good Choices as a Manager

• Keep Your Stress Levels under Control While Making Decision - Making a difficult decision is challenged by stress. Succumbing to stress will often result in bad decisions with adverse outcomes. Free yourself of the stress of what might happen. Think about the present and decide wisely without entertaining a purely negative perspective of the potential outcome.
• Take Some Time to Think - Take time and space to think clearly. It’s ok to make (minor) bad decisions initially. Give yourself time to understand the situation so that you may think through your options and be sure of the course of action you take. Once you realize there is a better way, in other words...when you have clarity, act quickly.
• Seek Input from Trusted Advisors - Even the little things, the smallest details, can be important. But if you are caught-up in the energy of a significant endeavor it's easy to miss these things. It is also the case that many times when leaders are very focused, their blind-spots are bigger than ever. Seek input. Ask for feedback. Go to someone whom you trust and who will tell you the truth - the painful truth!

Summing Up

• Taking care of yourself is essential if you are going through a phase where you have big decisions to make.
• Spend some time unwinding and engaging in your favorite activity.
• Talk to someone about your choices, and they might be able to walk you through several options and assist you in the decision-making process.

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Nick Anderson has been a student of leadership for 30 years beginning the day he received a novel “Leadership Award” from his U-12 soccer coach. During his 25-year career in banking Anderson led teams through mergers, acquisitions, bank failure, recessions and rapid growth while successfully managing the throes and pitfalls of being a middle manager. As a community volunteer Anderson led nonprofit organizations through periods of significant change as a board member, treasurer, vice president and board chair. Learn more at Chosen-Leader.com.

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