by C.V.Rajan

Created on: November 21, 2009

Read any book on managerial effectiveness; listen to any lecture on managerial excellence. One thing you will find being emphasized as the top-most quality needed for a manager in all of them will be decisiveness. It is decisiveness that differentiates a professional manager from an administrator "who somehow manages".

Some managers may wrongly interpret this quality as if they have to be instant-solution givers when confronted with problems. When a subordinate approaches you with a complex problem and expects you to give a decision to solve it, your decision need not be an instantaneous one like a magical object off your hat. Many managers lose their respect on account of their vulnerability in giving instant solutions that are either wrong, or need revision sooner.

== Ingredients to good decision making ==

A good decision making has several ingredients like knowledge of the subject, experience, access to relevant reference data, a keen sense of judgment to pick wheat from the chaff, consulting the right persons, some amount of quality time to brood over alternatives, and a hunch feeling.

A manager, to be and become a good decision maker, should make use of some or all of the above ingredients in a situation that demands a decision.

== Consult where knowledge is lacking ==

A manager need not necessarily be an expert in all the areas of activity under his supervision. A good manager is one who has a good birds-eye-view of things under his command, but knows where to seek advice, counsel or direction when he is not equipped with specialized knowledge.

A good and decisive manger does not give a wrong direction to hide his ignorance, nor does he procrastinate decision making and grope in the dark on account of his lack of knowledge. A good manager is one who has the boldness to accept his ignorance, openness to consult the right persons and smartness to tap the right help from the right source.

A good decisive manager does not rest on his ego, if he has to consult a junior who could be a specialist and the right source of knowledge. At the same time, the good decision maker has a very strong common sense to seek the most appropriate source for guidance and adds a fair degree of his common sense, past experience and gut feeling to weigh through the suggestions and give the right decision.

== Time factor in being decisive ==

A good decision maker is one who has different strategies for different situations. Where there is an emergency, he must have the swiftness

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