Leadership Rules: 50 Timeless Lessons For Leaders

CHAPTER 21

DECISION MAKING

No one likes to follow an indecisive leader who has no sense of direction and is always changing their mind. It leads to uncertainty, delay, conflict and waste of effort. Leaders must be decisive.

Decision making has never been easy: the ancients relied on soothsayers and oracles to help them make decisions. King Croesus famously asked what would happen if he attacked the Persian Empire. The Oracle at Delphi told him that a great empire would fall. Delighted, Croesus assaulted the Persians and discovered the Oracle was right. But it was not the Persian Empire which fell; it was his own.

To see what decision making is like without the corporate overhead of committees, task forces, consultants and other latter day soothsayers ...