20 Questions for Leaders 2/20 Decisions

From 20 Questions for Leaders:

What are the most important decisions you make as a leader of your organization?

For this question I will ignore any of the direct work related decisions regarding daily operations as I see these more as management decisions and I will focus on what I think are the most important leadership decision.

Firstly, I think the most important decision is goal setting.

We need to set inspiring goals, that will set the organisation on the path towards success.

The goals need to be challenging, but achievable. Set them to high and people will be demotivated, make them too easy and they will not be inspiring at all, and we will not be able to drive the organisation forward.

When I set goals, I try to make them a ambitious but achievable, and then I also like to set a real stretch goal in addition too.  If you can get this right, and get the team to focus, you can often achieve both goals, or even surpass them easily, if you can build momentum.

Secondly, I think the other most important decision is on the organisation, you need to get the right people, in the right positions.

You need to appoint people who understand what you’re trying to achieve, have the right level of drive and leadership, in order to support you in your leadership role.

The more people sharing the leadership burden, the more success you will have.

For me these are the two most important decisions a leader must make.

What do you think are your most important decisions?