The ability to make a good decision in a timely manner -a key management and leadership competency- is contingent upon knowing all of the situational variables:
- Decision significance
- Importance of commitment
- Leader expertise
- Likelihood of commitment
- Goal alignment
- Likelihood of disagreement
- Group expertise
- Interaction constraints
- Team competence
- The value of time
- The value of development
Once these variables have been identified, the next step to maximaizing decision quality matching normative behaviors along a decision making continuum that extends from totally autocratic to totally participative in. A high-quality decision reflects the analytical or impersonal factors behind the decision. A high-quality decision is consistent with all available information concerning the probability of achieving one’s goals if the decision were properly and effectively implemented. The ability to get a decision implemented is a key element in decision effectiveness: many high-quality or analytically sound decisions have failed as a result of poor or ineffective implementation. The implementation of decisions is, in turn, affected by the degree to which they were understood by others and the extent to which they were committed to carry them out.