Having served as president of a professional services firm from 2020 to 2024, I know firsthand what it's like to be in that "top dog" seat, with all the responsibilities and pressures that come with it. My predecessors prepared me for the role, including essentially allowing me to bear many if not all of the functions of the title before I actually had the title. But, there's something noticeably heavy about actually wearing the crown, that you can't really feel or describe until you're there.
If there's a single lesson I could distill that experience down to, it's "be decisive." From that vantage point, you have to make decisions and then move on. You cannot waffle, you have to decide. And, once having decided, you have to move on. Which I was not naturally good at but quickly surmised was important and worked hard on.
Having recently met up with a colleague of mine who recently ascended to the top position of her organization, I would like to use today's post to elaborate a bit on what I mean by "be decisive." Which I think is that, for as complex an entity as you run and as many are the moving parts you must keep up with and get your hands dirty with, being in the top position truly boils down to three tasks and only three:
1. Figure out what decisions you need to make. The best leaders focus on the decisions that they only can make. They don't busy themselves with decisions others under them can make. And they don't shirk the responsibility to decide on things that need to be decided on and that they must be the decision-maker on. So, the first thing a leader must do is figure out, out of a million decision points that make up an organization at any point in time, which ones are for them to take charge on. Oh, and guess what? Those decisions left to you are usually the hardest and most consequential, no pressure.
2. Figure out what you need to make those decisions. There's a fine line between firing from the hip and over-analyzing a situation. Most decisions require some groundwork. You need to collect information, or talk to someone, or wait for something in the world to settle. Of course, you can always collect more information, talk to more people, and wait for more things in the world to settle. So, at some point, you have to make the decision. Hence, the second thing a leader must do is figure out what they need to do in order to be in a position to make an informed decision. Not just how long to take for a decision, but what info do I need, and where and how am I going to get that info. In a messy world, these are not easy things to do.
3. Announce the decision, execute the decision, move on. You need to actually execute the thing you've decided, like fire that person or launch that new product or fly out to meet that customer. And you need to be thoughtful and thorough about the communications that are appropriate for the before, during, and after of that execution. And then you need to move on, because other decisions and decision-making processes await. Which means saving for another day the debrief on whether that decision was right, if it was what did we learn that we can use again, and if it wasn't what you need to do to own the mistake and learn from it.
And...that's it. Easy peasy, right? Nope!
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