Choices and decisions are very often thought to be synonymous. Purposefully thinking through the distinct differences of each will ultimately lend itself to building more effective teamwork, leadership skills and result in better outcomes.
Let’s start with the formal definitions of each:
Choice – the right, power, or opportunity to choose
Decision – the act of or need for making up one’s mind
Since choices are linked to attributes that are personally empowering the result is that, to some extent, choices are made based on our emotional thought process. Decisions, by the nature of the definition, are mostly made based on situational analyses and facts. Let’s put this into the context of leaders and leadership. Leadership requires that leaders will make decisions and then communicate those decisions to their teams for execution. Such actions include, hiring, firing, strategies, acquisitions, dispositions, just to name a few. The list is endless. They do however, have one thing in common and that is that decisions are a process of analyses that end in an action or actions. In the current time of the COVID-19 crisis there are exponentially more decisions and some of them drastic and painful.
Let’s press pause. What would happen if we approached leadership decision making process with the lens of “Choices”, that is with the lens of leaders “having the right, power and opportunity to choose”?
In reality we make choices based on our core beliefs, our values, the stated mission and our cultural mindset and norms. It is a mindset approach. Choice is what you aspire to be, what you aspire to achieve, both for yourself and for others and for the organization as a whole and for the stakeholders and community which are impacted by organizational actions and decisions. Making decisions starting with considering the choices you have, the impact of those choices and then taking action in a decision leads to a more impactful well thought through leadership action which generally will result in outcomes, however painful in the short term, that can be embraced and supported by all whom are impacted.
The takeaway: Almost all decisions are made with the short term in mind. Choices on the other hand take longer to think through, gather input and assess. In tough times good leaders agonize over tough choices and ultimately this results in decisions focused on the longer term. This commitment becomes visibly apparent to everyone and will pull people together to support and achieve a common goal. Decisions are what get us through tomorrow, but decisions made through the consideration of choices are what that will get us through the day after and the day after that.