Your best leadership decision can backfire if....

Making the right decision as a leader is always our goal. But in some ways the decision itself is the easy part. The hard part is running a process that will make the decision a win rather than a liability. Many great decisions run aground because of poor process.

Process involves a number of key pieces, any of which if not addressed can cause your direction to backfire.

• Have I consulted all the key stakeholders who will be impacted by the decision that is being made?
• Have I developed a guiding coalition of people who can and will support the decision and help explain and commend it to other?
• Have I considered the unintended consequences of the direction that is being considered?
• Have I carefully laid out a process of communication, explanation, dialogue and the sequence of who needs to be told when?

Many leaders suffer from impatience to get something done and in their strategic bent make great decisions that end up badly because they did not run good process. Remember that by the time we have come to a conclusion we have processed the issues but those who will be impacted have not. We need to run process twice as leaders: Once in our own thinking and then again to help others get their hands around it as well. 

Good ideas gone awry usually do so because of poor process. And once they go awry they are harder to do the second time because of the poor taste left in the wake of bad process.