{"id":6284,"date":"2018-10-18T20:46:51","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T01:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=6284"},"modified":"2018-10-18T20:46:51","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T01:46:51","slug":"4-secrets-to-know-who-makes-the-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/18\/4-secrets-to-know-who-makes-the-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Secrets To Know Who Makes the Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leadership is all about making decisions. But before you can make the call you need clarity on whose call it is to make.<\/h2>\n

Several years ago\u00a0a\u00a0previous organization I led had partnered with another organization\u00a0to 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 said we should program a concert for that time slot.<\/p>\n

I disagreed.<\/p>\n

And there we stood; just staring at each other, not sure who should make the call.<\/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 had absolutely no lasting impact on our partner. 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

I talked to a trusted leadership mentor about this. I’ll never forget his advice: \u201cOn every decision there is only one decision-making key. And if you\u2019re not clear who holds that key, things will get very fuzzy, very fast.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

That leadership insight has helped me navigate some tricky leadership waters for many years.<\/p>\n

Because when it comes to making important leadership decisions, it\u2019s all about knowing who is holding the key.<\/p>\n

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

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Always be clear who holds the decision key<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>You can\u2019t share the key<\/strong><\/h2>\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\u00a0<\/strong>Never give away the key<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Key-holders should be collaborative, but ultimately stand alone when making the call<\/strong><\/h2>\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 key, leadership doors start to open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leadership is all about making decisions. But before you can make the call you need clarity on whose call it is to make. Several years ago\u00a0a\u00a0previous organization I led had partnered with another organization\u00a0to present a leadership conference. The schedule was set to go all day Friday and all day Saturday. But noticing that there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5384,"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":[478,7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-leadership","category-tension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284","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=6284"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6287,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284\/revisions\/6287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}