Leadership principle #1: Get people involved

I had an impassioned discussion with a few people yesterday, which highlighted the importance of my

Here’s how it works:  If you’re involved with a group of people who have an active discussion about a key decision, with inputs being heard and considered, then you understand a bit more about why the decision is made the way it is.  You don’t actually have to WIN, or even necessarily have a significant number of your ideas incorporated.  The mere fact that you had a CHANCE for your ideas to be heard is the important thing.

Why is this important?  Let’s suppose that you’re the leader of a group, and you need to decide how to allocate work around the team so that the most important stuff gets done well.

Yes, it’s your job to figure this out.  But if your employees don’t support the decision, the whole thing could fall apart.  You can choose to:

1. Make the decision by yourself and announce it to your employees
2. Discuss the tradeoffs with each person individually, and use their input to make your decision.
3. Have the group get together to discuss it, and drive the group toward a decision that they can live with.

The first alternative is most likely to meet with resistance.  Not because you made the wrong decision, but because people didn’t have the opportunity to have their viewpoints considered.  Even if you DID attempt to consider all viewpoints as best you understand them, your people didn’t perceive that you did it because they weren’t involved.  You just announced the result.

The third alternative is most likely to meet with support, because they were involved in the creation of the answer.  They understand how the decision was made, and why.

Successfully doing alternative 3 can be quite difficult, and perhaps you would resist trusting that it would yield the best result.  Fine.  That’s where alternative 2 might be a better selection for a particular decision, because you have greater control of the process.  If you go this route, I would advise:

• Tell each person you are in the process of making a decision.
• Talk to EVERY person affected by the decision.
• Let each person know you are talking with the others.
• Listen carefully, and don’t make promises that you can’t keep – or even imply.

Remember, decisions by themselves are just a step on the way.  It’s not until the decision turns into ACTION that you receive the value.  And that’s where you rely on others.

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