In the Qualities of a Bad Leader post one of the last points was that poor leaders are indecisive or they make decisions slowly. In the blog, Mind the Product, Alex Hughes has an excellent article on decision making. “Indecision in Product: How to Avoid becoming a Bottleneck”
Be wrong as fast as you can, he writes as leaving your team in limbo is far worse than making a mistake. Easier to forgive a bad decision than wait around for a wrong one. The article is excellent and quotes Scott Belsky in seeking teams that build conviction over consensus to generate extraordinary outcomes.
I see this in many of the leaders that I have worked with in the past who can be considered bad leaders. They believe that consensus is the mark of a great leader and slow all decisions down to build consensus but in the same time absolutely killing momentum, motivation and desire. Simple things like duty rosters, exam timetables, reporting timelines get bogged down in the desire to have “buy-in”. At the end of the day, some decisions need to be made and need to be made quickly. If it is a bad decision, own it, learn from it and move on, but better to make it than let something die on the vine.
