{"id":4485,"date":"2015-04-01T17:30:36","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T22:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=4485"},"modified":"2015-04-02T17:32:58","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T22:32:58","slug":"why-leaders-must-hold-the-decision-making-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2015\/04\/01\/why-leaders-must-hold-the-decision-making-key\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Leaders Must Hold the Decision-Making Key"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever stood with a group of people at a locked door, with everyone wondering, \u201cWho has the key?\u201d you\u2019ve faced a classic leadership conundrum.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because when there is fuzziness on the question, \u201cWho holds the decision key on this?\u201d entire organizations can grind to a halt.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This leadership principle hit me full in the face many years ago when our organization had partnered with a local church to present a leadership conference.<\/p>\n

The schedule was set to go all day Friday and all day Saturday. But noticing that there was nothing scheduled on Friday evening, a leader from our partner church said we should program a concert for that timeslot.<\/p>\n

I disagreed.<\/p>\n

And there we stood; standing at the door, not sure who held the decision key.<\/p>\n

Ultimately I deferred and allowed our partner to program a concert for that evening. It turned out to be a disaster. It was very poorly planned and executed.<\/p>\n

But the real learning happened Monday morning. The disaster that was this concert had absolutely no lasting impact on this church leader, nor his church. But I was digging myself out of this mess for weeks afterwards.<\/p>\n

Because at the end of the day, the programming for the entire conference, including Friday evening, was my accountability. Not his.<\/p>\n

And because I held the accountability, I held the decision key. But I gave it away, and paid for it dearly.<\/p>\n

In short, here\u2019s what I learned.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Always be clear who holds the decision key<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whoever is ultimately responsible makes the call.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>You can\u2019t share the key<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve written before, there are no \u201cteam decisions\u201d<\/a>. One person makes the call, because one person is responsible.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Never give away the key<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just because someone demands the key is no reason to give it up.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Key-holders should be collaborative, but ultimately stand alone when making the call<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the end of the day, leadership is all about making decisions. But before you can make the call you need clarity on whose call it is to make.<\/p>\n

So take a lesson from my experience.<\/p>\n

Because when you know you hold the decision making key, leadership doors start to open.<\/p>\n

How do you determine who makes the call?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever stood with a group of people at a locked door, with everyone wondering, \u201cWho has the key?\u201d you\u2019ve faced a classic leadership conundrum. Because when there is fuzziness on the question, \u201cWho holds the decision key on this?\u201d entire organizations can grind to a halt. This leadership principle hit me full in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,738,440,478,744,585],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-effectiveness-2","category-failing","category-featured","category-team-2","category-wisdom-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4485"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4533,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4485\/revisions\/4533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}