Who’s it good for? You? Or your team…? Or someone else?
I write a lot about making decisions, how to make them, and when to make them. But who are the decisions for?
And who will they benefit?
Think about your role in your organization for a bit. Where are you in the hierarchy? Are you high up or down in the starting blocks as a new employee?
Are you able to impact just a few people, the whole organization, or maybe just you?
How does that make you feel?
All people crave autonomy. The ability to govern oneself and do what’s needed, or perceived, to get what you want. To be able to follow your own drive.
au·ton·o·my
noun
1. the right or condition of self-government.
2. (in Kantian moral philosophy) the capacity of an agent to act in accordance with objective morality rather than under the influence of desires.
But we can’t all be autonomous in our quest for team, organization, togetherness, collective agreements, and so on. Ultimately, someone has to yield, and someone has to make the decisions.
And sometimes, it’s not you in the leadership role.
But for those that are… and when you make those decisions, who does it benefit?
If your decisions benefit the team, the org, the collective capacity of the team that you lead, good.
If your decisions tend to benefit only yourself, your team will find out soon enough and abandon ship.
Lead carefully. And if you follow, do so until it’s time to lead, yourself.