Ever felt the weight of a crucial decision sitting heavily on your shoulders? How about the challenge of rallying a team around a course of action that's fraught with uncertainty? Strap in and listen up. We're about to tread the tough terrain of decision making and leadership, unmasking the challenges and equipping you with strategies to navigate these with confidence.
Our conversation is packed with insights on creating a space for open communication within your team, enabling you to make those tough calls without hesitating. We delve into the nitty-gritty of what makes decision-making tick - clarity of vision, transparent communication, team engagement, and giving context. We're also going to unpick the art of articulating the reasons behind your choices in a way that everyone can understand.
But that's not all! We're also going to discuss some of the less-talked-about aspects of decision making - the importance of risk assessment, long-term thinking, adaptability, courage, and resilience. Mistakes? They're part of the journey. It's about how we learn from them and adapt that decides the trajectory of our success. So join us as we unravel the nuances of decision-making and leadership, and empower you to step up your game. You don't want to miss this.
Ever felt the weight of a crucial decision sitting heavily on your shoulders? How about the challenge of rallying a team around a course of action that's fraught with uncertainty? Strap in and listen up. We're about to tread the tough terrain of decision making and leadership, unmasking the challenges and equipping you with strategies to navigate these with confidence.
Our conversation is packed with insights on creating a space for open communication within your team, enabling you to make those tough calls without hesitating. We delve into the nitty-gritty of what makes decision-making tick - clarity of vision, transparent communication, team engagement, and giving context. We're also going to unpick the art of articulating the reasons behind your choices in a way that everyone can understand.
But that's not all! We're also going to discuss some of the less-talked-about aspects of decision making - the importance of risk assessment, long-term thinking, adaptability, courage, and resilience. Mistakes? They're part of the journey. It's about how we learn from them and adapt that decides the trajectory of our success. So join us as we unravel the nuances of decision-making and leadership, and empower you to step up your game. You don't want to miss this.
Navigating tough leadership decisions with confidence, making tough decisions for the best of the practice. This is challenging for a lot of reasons and I'm really excited to chat about it because I think that it's an important conversation to have, and every business owner is at a different place in their unique journey with making tough decisions and with understanding the importance of making decisions for the whole team, considering everything, despite the challenges that come along with it. And right away, you might be very aware of some of the challenges that come along with making tough decisions that impact everyone, and maybe you're not, but we're gonna go over what are those challenges, what could those challenges be when it comes to making these decisions, and also what can we do about it. So, without further ado, let's get into it Now.
Speaker 1:Effective leadership often involves making challenging decisions, and they're not always universally understood or supported. And these decisions are crucial for the betterment of an organization, but can be met with uncertainty, resistance, maybe misunderstanding. So, to successfully navigate this really complex terrain, leaders have to harness this courage, strategic thinking, empathy and an unwavering commitment to the organization as a whole, its long-term success and how all the different pieces impact all of the different parts of the practice. So why is it so challenging? What are these just hardships when it comes to making tough decisions? What makes this hard? Well, a big reason is this misunderstanding, or maybe something not being universally understood by everyone on the team and this can be expected, and something to build some resiliency and tools around, because it's really hard for people who are not in your position to not entirely understand it. And that's okay and it makes a ton of sense. But it does make it challenging to make these tough decisions when you know that it might not be understood, it might not be supported, although you know it's what's best. So the reason it's challenging is because there may be a lack of complete information.
Speaker 1:Right Leaders and the owners of the business often, very, very often, possess a lot more information than the individual team members. They are seeing the business structure as a whole, how things are impacting each other, the ups and downs, and you can, of course, better understand the direction you're going based on where you have been in the past and the important decisions that need to be made with that data, with that experience and with that history. And this can make decisions seem counterintuitive to others because they don't have that same information as you do, they can't consider all of those different pieces. So the lack of complete information that the team members have can make this difficult. And what's even harder is that they might never have that information, no matter how much you explain it, because they just don't have that same experience and they haven't seen all the different parts and pieces that you have seen and how they impact each other and why it's important to make that decision. The other challenging challenge is there are going to be differing perspective always right, and we always want to take in those diverse viewpoints. But team members have diverse viewpoints shaped by their own personal experiences, and this might not align with certain decisions that you have to make as a leader for the good of the company.
Speaker 1:Communication barriers can also make it tough when you are making decisions. This is a challenge because ineffective communication or lack of communication can, of course, lead to misunderstandings and resistance to the decisions. There also can be a resistance to change. So we know that as our business develops, as we grow, as we learn, as we go through certain hardships, as we go through the roller coaster of ups and downs, change is necessary. Change is good. We always want to be considering what do we need to add, what do we need to do? What do we need to change, what do we need to update?
Speaker 1:But people naturally resist change. Humans naturally resist change right, because it's uncomfortable. Even when it benefits the organization, change is scary. So that is a very common barrier. And, lastly, fear of the unknown makes this challenging. Unfamiliar decisions can really evoke fear of the unknown, leading to uncertainty or anxiety. So it's a very common experience that folks on the team may have. When you are making decisions for the good of the whole team, for just the decisions you make in leadership position, it can be scary, it can be anxiety provoking. So very, very common challenges. Right, very understandable that making these decisions, despite how they might be taken, is a very difficult thing to do. Because we care very deeply about our team, we want them to be very content and we also know, in order to do that, we have to make certain decisions that everyone may not agree with because of the intricacies of how this puzzle all fits together and impacts each other and the unique experience you have leading the business.
Speaker 1:So the challenges making tough decisions are due to lack of complete information, differing perspectives, communication barriers, resistance to change, fear of the unknown and personal agendas, which we didn't chat about, but I'm going to add that one into the mix too, right? So when you are in a place where you have the agenda of the whole practice and you're able to see all of that, see all these intricate parts, what can we do? Because we absolutely need to make those tough decisions. We cannot resist making those tough decisions and avoid them or push them, because that is not good for anyone. It's not good for anyone individually in the practice, it's not good for the practice, it's not good for the clients, it's not good for the longevity, it is serving no one. Although we do sometimes maybe use complete happiness and content of every single team member who comes in as a measure, we need to make sure everyone is happy and agrees on everything, and that's just impossible, especially as you grow and you have a larger group. There's going to be decisions you have to make and it might not be a good fit for everyone.
Speaker 1:Now, with that being said, of course, of course, we want to take everything into account. We want to hear from our team consistently how are things impacting you? What do you wish to see? What are your opinions on these? What are your opinions on these things and, at the same time, retrieving that information, while we are also continuing to stay grounded, stay in a place where we can make decisions, where we can separate and make decisions of what's best for the practice, to be able to say, OK, this is how one person is experiencing it, and maybe it's they're not experiencing it well, and if I were to make the decision to change it, so they are content, how is this going to impact this other person and this other person and this other team member, and side by side as a whole, and the longevity and the systems and all of that in place? We can always modify for specific people, but sometimes that's just not possible and we also want to consider, we want to remember that it's just not going to be the best fit for everyone and that's not a reason to not make these tough decisions.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what can we do about it? What do we have control over? What can we focus on when it comes to making these tough decisions? Knowing that it is going to bring up fear of the unknown, it is going to create a little anxiety, there might be resistance to change, there might be differing perspectives right, there's going to be an incomplete knowledge base, too, that those folks have. When you are explaining a new system based on the last several years of doing something one way and seeing the impacts, right, well, what do we have control over? We have control over a lot, and it's important to consider this and not live in fear, but live empowered through your practices to create a safe space, an educated, communicative space, where people are able to have the information to be able to communicate, where things are transparent, where they have engagement and, at the same time, when it comes down to it, you are making the best decision that you can in that moment. Okay, that's going to impact the practice.
Speaker 1:So what can we do? First thing, be a vision. Having a clear and well-defined vision for your organization is really essential. So in order to make that decision and articulate why a decision is necessary, how it aligns with the organization's missions and values and its expected long-term benefits, we need to have a clear, well-defined, grounded vision for the organization, which means we need to have that experience, we need to have that mentorship, we need to take care of ourselves so we are grounded, we need to be able to separate, we need to have that data and we need to have a clear vision of what is best for the practice. So clarity of vision, and the clarity of vision comes into all of the other pieces I'm going to talk about of what we have control over.
Speaker 1:And the second item is transparency and communication. Vision and transparent communication is very crucial at all times, but especially when making these tough decisions that you know are going to impact people individually. Leaders should explain the reasons behind their choices, behind the potential impacts and steps to mitigate any negative consequences or any just changes that might be happening right to best support the team in those changes in that decision. Being very open and transparent is vulnerable and it is tough and it requires consistency. It requires you to look at yourself as a leader and it is so important. It is so important to the culture, for the safety, for the health of the practice, for the health of each clinician.
Speaker 1:You want to constantly be working toward consistent transparency and communication to your team from your team as a whole in the team, and this can be. You know this is a very large topic, but of course, it's important to mention when we're talking about making decisions and what we need to do when we're making decisions being open, explaining the back end of things, explaining the why, being transparent with your beliefs in general, maybe your concerns with it as well, what your plan is, what steps you're gonna take to make sure it goes well. Communicating that you really care about how it's gonna impact everyone individually and you wanna hear about it, and that you are open to feedback and will consistently have a back and forth, is very, very important to the success of that decision, to the success of each clinician and to the safety as well. And this brings me into the next one, which is team engagement. Now, we wanna be transparent and have communication with our team and we want the team to have that with us. We want them to be engaged in the decision making. We want our clients to have engagement in what decisions we make. The each team member to be able to have that engagement. Our partners and this is going to lead to, of course, a more well-rounded, better informed choice. And we want our team to know that they have ownership in this. They are absolutely invited and encouraged to be part of the conversation. We want to hear it. We are a team and we wanna all be engaged in making the decisions and, as mentioned, this is so, so important and with lack of certain information, it makes it hard because with team engagement, they still may not know certain back end items. Even if you explain it as much as you can, right, there are gonna be some folks that may not understand it and may not agree, and that's just. It's the unfortunate, unavoidable part that we don't have control over, right? But team engagement is so important, having those surveys introducing a possible change, asking about what they think, asking about what they think about how we should make this change with this problem we're experiencing or with this update we wanna have, or with the new service we wanna provide. Team engagement, team engagement, team engagement.
Speaker 1:Okay, the next one is going to be providing context. I kinda spoke to this already, but just to make it its own point, we wanna really share the strategic perspective and long-term goals. Right, they're not sitting in your shoes. They're not able to see, they're not able to soak in and have that same experience and be able to live that day in, day out, multiple year experience, multiple problems that are occurring in the 14 hours days you have. They're not quite able, they're not gonna be able to understand that right, cause they don't have that lived experience. And that's absolutely okay and very valid. So, because they don't, we want to do our best to provide the context that's needed to ensure that safety, that trust, that engagement, that communication and so sharing why your strategic perspective about it, what you have experienced, the long-term goals and why this is important. It is very important. We wanna demonstrate the decisions, relevance and importance in why we're implementing it, especially when change is hard. So why are we doing it if it's hard? Why are we doing it if there might be some negative consequences or not so comfy consequences? Well, there's lots of reasons, right, and so we wanna share those reasons and provide that context.
Speaker 1:Next, we want to always have that risk assessment and mitigation in mind when we are making decisions. Effective leaders always carefully assess risks associated with their decisions and consequences, or just play out what's gonna happen with making that decision and develop strategies to manage or mitigate them, ensuring responsible, shared decision-making. We want long-term perspective as well, which means prioritizing your long-term sustainability over your short-term goals, your short-term gains is very essential To have that perspective of looking this as in sustainability, looking at this long-term, of course, that sustainability is gonna impact everyone in the practice. So, having that long-term perspective and maybe not that quick dopamine for the team members or for you, right, is really important, because in the long run that's not going to be helping anyone. So we have to be making tough decisions, even if hard right now. We need to be doing that for the benefit of the future and for the sustainability and the whole team okay, to secure the organization's stability and growth over time.
Speaker 1:Next very important thing is adaptability and learning. Although there's so much we can't control when we are making decisions, including all the different ways people can view those decisions, what we do have control over is always growing as a leader, to be adaptable and to continue to learn. So adaptability and learning is a big thing we should all be consistently doing and taking responsibility over. So we are making good decisions that are for the better of the practice, that are for the best for each person individually and for our clients. Leaders should be willing to adapt, willing to learn from the outcome of their choices, from demonstrating humility and a commitment to continuous improvement, and that's why that shame and overworking is going to be very harmful, because you lack perspective.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be hard to build that resiliency but to understand that we as leaders are going to be consistently learning and adapting, which means we're gonna be consistently making mistakes, but it's not avoiding mistakes that we wanna do. That's not possible. We are gonna fall down, but it's how we get up. It's the fact that we get up and we continue to adapt to make sure we do better next time or we incorporate something that's going to be better right. So adaptability and learning as a leader, as a business owner, in systems and all the things we do, is extremely important. Know you're gonna fall, take care of yourself and be committed to getting back up, doing better, learning from others, learning from mentors, learning from your team, getting their perspective, so you can best make decisions moving forward.
Speaker 1:The next item is to consistently. Practice is going to help you to build your courage, build your conviction, and this is so important because making decisions is really tough and it takes time to be able to stand in them with courage and conviction, especially when we're getting maybe negative feedback from those who may not understand right, and we care so deeply about them. So it really is gonna impact us emotionally, but we have to stand firm in our convictions, even when we're faced with opposition or black lash right, and one way that has helped me to do this is when it's hard to hear certain feedback or that someone may not be happy with a decision. Think about how the decision that you implemented makes things better, more efficient, effective, makes others more content right. Think about how it impacts others in a positive way Other team members, clients okay, this is important because you're gonna have an opposition to it and if you are experienced, it's something to take very seriously but also to compare to.
Speaker 1:Well, I made this decision for the better of my clients, right. So if I have one client upset, maybe I have to accept that I have this one upset client, see if I can do anything to help them to explain, to modify, but then accept that you know I made it for the better of the whole team. Or I mean, I'm sorry for the clients in this example and this is why I wanna do this. I am looking for leadership, mentorship, feedback to make sure I am thinking of this correctly and I'm constantly evaluating the feedback I get and mentorship of people who've been here before and my past experiences, and I'm gonna use that as well to stand more courageously and with conviction, despite the emotional toll and the hardship of maybe being a people pleaser or just of the hardship of hearing that someone may not like it, when you really care about what that person thinks and how they're experiencing it, right, and you just wanna do everything you can for it. So we have to demonstrate courage and decision-making, and this is a hallmark of effective leadership, because we're not always gonna all be on the same page and people don't all have the same experience as you, right, because they're not in your position. So what's really helpful, and what I found to be really helpful, is, throughout time, with practice, throughout my career, you build courage and conviction through everything you go through and how you do that is by continuing to move forward with adaptability and learning, with long-term perspective, with risk assessment, with all the experiences you go through, with involving others, with that team engagement, and you continue to build those skills to be able to stand strong and resilient in your decision-making.
Speaker 1:The next piece with when it comes to making decisions most effectively, is going to be self-care and building that resilience, taking care of yourself. You have to practice self-care because if your glass is empty, it's really hard to be able to make decisions. It's really hard to be able to have that perspective, to be able to be grounded. It's just very, very hard, right? Think about when you're trying to take care of, say, you have kids and you're trying to take care of your kids and show up as the best parent you can be, but you haven't been able to do anything for yourself for a month. You're probably not showing up as your best self, right, because you haven't taken time to yourself so you might be making poor decisions in how you respond to your child. Right, because it's really really hard when you are not taking care of yourself. So that's an important piece that we absolutely have control over. That's really going to impact our decision-making and how we engage in decision-making.
Speaker 1:The next piece is going to be always taking into, always acknowledging and taking into account ethical considerations and measuring the impact, and I'm going to separate those. So let's let's first talk about ethical considerations. When decision-making, you have control over adhering to a strong ethical framework and really making sure that you are ensuring that decisions align with your organization's values and principles, to continue to build trust, to continue to live according to your values for your team, and so I separated that. The next one was measuring impact, which is with decisions and with changing our decisions, with modifying our decisions, with making new decisions for the same thing right, the same component of the practice. We want to be always measuring, always measuring the impact of the decision we made. So establishing key performance indicators which is a whole other episode that I will do. So those KPIs help leaders evaluate the outcomes of their decisions and make necessary adjustments.
Speaker 1:Another way, other than KPI and actually having those numbers, is to measure impact. We want to be checking in with those we serve, right, our clients. We also want to be checking in with our team how it's feeling for them. We want to be measuring those goals and the why for making that decision right. So if we made a decision and we know it impacts X, we want to be tracking X and trying new things. If, when we are tracking X, it's not going in the direction we want to be going in, so we can pivot, make changes, build resiliency in that pivot and have that courage and conviction to make that pivot right. So measuring impact, understanding the results and outcomes, is very, very important. We want to look at our key performance indicators, down from our those, those numbers, those KPI numbers, to our surveys as well and our check ins with our team and our clients.
Speaker 1:Next, we have control over addressing concerns and not pushing them, pushing them under the rug. We want to listen to the feedback from our team, from our clients, from our partners, with the decision that was made and address any concerns that they have. Those concerns are valid, those concerns are important information. That person is a very important part of our team. We want to actively listen to the concerns, address the worries and provide reassurance and perspectives and do as much as we can to keep them informed, to make sure they know that you care and that you're listening and you want to explain more, you want to modify if possible, and you really want them to understand why and to feel safe.
Speaker 1:Okay, so adjusting concerns and acknowledging their emotions. I mean that it is hard to pivot, it is hard to. Decisions do impact people, right, whether it's a change and change is uncomfortable, or it's a decision that they might not love. We need to recognize the role that emotions play in decision making and empathize with the team members. Feelings Okay, while also, at the same time, emphasizing the decisions. Rationale, because communication, understanding and the background is going to help calm the nerves of that person. Okay, a lot of times it's just because they have a lack of understanding or information that's needed to help to calm their anxieties. We want to also highlight the positive outcomes. So when we're explaining the why, of course we're doing things for positive outcomes, for the betterment of the practice, for the team, for the clients. So we really want to explain and emphasize the decisions and benefits for the organization and for the individual team members to alleviate the concerns.
Speaker 1:Okay, and with the concerns that might be coming up, we want to offer support. We want to provide resources, we want to provide time to check in on that. We want to offer support to help team members adjust to changes resulting from the decision. We don't want to implement and leave. We want to implement, check in, check in, check in and we should always be checking in. Whether we're making decisions, whether we're making a lot of changes, we always want to be checking in with our team and offering support and getting curious about what kind of support might be needed or because we need to always be checking where are their holes, where may support be helpful that I'm not thinking about and just always have that open door for communication and support.
Speaker 1:Next, we want to monitor and adapt. We want to keep a close eye on the decisions and be willing to adapt and communicate the changes as needed. And this is a little bit repetitive and goes into other things we have already chatted about. But monitoring those decisions and adapting is going to be really important and I won't expand on that too much more. And lastly, and very importantly, we want to lead by example. We want to demonstrate commitment to the organization's well-being through our actions, through our communication, through reinforcing trust in your decision-making, through engagement, through vulnerability, through showing up in those hard decisions, in those pivots, in those changes, because, of course, for it's not only uncomfortable for the team members, right, it's very uncomfortable for us as leaders as well. So we wanna demonstrate the commitment, how we show up and lead by example. So that concludes all of the different ways we have control when it comes to just the challenges and that toughness when it comes to making decisions that everyone may not quite understand.
Speaker 1:Leadership involves making those tough decisions. That's never gonna go away. We cannot avoid that. We need to make tough decisions for the greater good. It's a good thing. It's uncomfortable but it's good. So, even when faced with the challenges and the opposition, it is a good thing. And by being transparent, by having empathy and by having a focus on the long-term success, you can navigate these complexities with confidence and lead your organization into success, into contentment, prosperity all the values and goals you have to continue to build a strong organization with a supported team and a strong leader.
Speaker 1:Making tough decisions is not just a skill. It's really a defining characteristic of effective leadership, and we're all in different parts of our journey with us. It is not an easy thing. It takes time, it takes awareness, it takes experiences, and you are not alone. You can become more resilient and become better at making decisions using these different skills, using these different things that we do have control over. Despite being uncomfortable, despite being hard, you can show up and you can do it. I believe it. So until next time, best of luck, you got this.