Decision Making
Similar to critical thinking, people in positions of leadership must be able to make decisions. Making decisions for one's self is easy, but making decisions on behalf of others is much more complicated. Leaders must be able to consider all of their options with an unbiased mind. Leaders should also take full responsibility for the decisions they make on behalf of the people they are over.
​
Many if not most of a leader or managers job is to make decisions. Everyday life is full of decisions to be made, and a lot of these choices do not have any visible consequences. When it comes to making decisions for your team or organization, leaders must be prepared to work with the people around them to do the most good for the most people. Sometimes this means delegating tasks to other teammates so that decisions can be made by others as well.
Artifact: Decision Making
The artifact I chose to use for this core competency is a group project I worked on last semester. In this project we were assigned the task of planning a Thanksgiving dinner. Our group sat down and first decided who was in charge of what aspects of the dinner. We had separate people planning the dinning arrangements, the guest list, music selection, and the budget. This project was to large to handle alone, so every person made informed decisions that pertained to their assigned area.
Reflection
Decision making is an essential part of being a leader. Every project, team, and organization has daily decision that must be made. Leaders that know how to break down projects ,and appropriately make decisions on behalf of the team are very competent, and can reach their goals. Part of decision making on an organizational level means delegating, which allows team members to focus on their own concentrated information, and make decisions accordingly.
Growth and Development
In my personal life, and during my time in this Organizational Leadership program, I have seen the importance of decision making. While being apart of the project group that created the Thanksgiving dinner project, I learned that my decisions affected everyone. While the topic of the project was not as serious as it could be, the grade was very important. What I did with my share of the project affected everyone on my team, and that made me think long and hard about what I contributed to the assignment. I believe I now take that kind of consideration in many of the decisions that I make. This makes me a better leader, or on my way to becoming one at least.