298 | How Great Leaders Make Better Decisions: 3 Keys to Clarity and Confidence

In this episode of the Lead Culture Podcast, Jenni Catron continues the Summer of Leadership series by tackling one of the most overlooked yet essential leadership skills: decision-making. Whether you're leading a small team or an entire organization, how decisions are made—and how clearly that process is communicated—can either build trust or breed confusion.

Jenni outlines three keys to clear, confident decision-making:

1. Define the Who – Clarify who has decision-making authority at every level.
2. Align Decisions with Values – Ensure every decision reflects your organization’s core values.
3. Communicate the Why – Explain the rationale behind decisions to foster understanding and trust.

This episode offers practical insights for leaders who want to bring more clarity, consistency, and cultural alignment to the decisions they make every day. Plus, Jenni shares simple next steps you can take to assess and improve your team’s decision-making process right away.

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Transcript

Hey, leaders, welcome to the Lead Culture Podcast. I'm your host, Jenny Catron, CEO of the Forsight Group. We're a company dedicated to helping leaders develop thriving teams. Each week, I'll be your guide as we explore practical strategies to equip you with the tools you need to lead with clarity, confidence, and build unstoppable momentum in your organization. My mission is to be your trusted coach, empowering you to master the art of self-leadership so you'll learn to lead yourself well so you can lead others better. Each week we take a deep dive on a leadership or a culture topic. You'll hear stories from amazing guests and leaders like you who are committed to leading well. So let's dive in and keep learning on this leadership journey together. 

Well, friends, welcome back to the Summer of Leadership series. We are in the thick of it, thick of the summer heat, thick of the summer series. Not sick of, thick of, that's kind of funny. So we've looked at topics like self leadership, emotional intelligence, communication, and how these skills impact the way we show up as leaders. So today we're turning our attention to a leadership skill that you really practice every single day, even if you don't always realize it. Today, we're going to talk about decision-making. Now this one's a dicey one. When I'm talking with teams about culture, decision-making always kind of shows up in the conversation of

We don't know how decisions are made or it's not clear how decisions are made or we don't know who makes what decisions. Ever heard those things in your team? We all struggle with decision-making, but great leaders don't just make decisions, they make decisions in a great way. So we're going to dig into that today of how do we make good decisions? How do we make sure that we have a process for decision-making?

Jenni Catron (02:27.554)
that really builds our culture rather than erodes it. See friends, in our personal lives, decisions are constant. Like we make decisions all the time and a lot of them are really small. You decide whether to get up in the morning. You decide what to wear, what to eat, which route to drive to work, whether to take out the trash now or when you get home. Sound like something you probably even thought of this morning, right? Whether to buy that new supplement that everybody's raving about.

that feels like it's the thing right now. Whether to go to the gym or go home and relax, like there's a zillion decisions you're making constantly. Like you're always making decisions. They're there and a lot of times we're maybe second guessing them or we're overthinking or maybe even feeling a little regret because we chose going home over going to the gym or we chose the cheeseburger over the salad or whatever the decision might be, right? There's all kinds of...

decisions we make and a lot of ways we feel about the decisions we make. And that mental discomfort, that second guessing, the overthinking, the feeling regret, those things, it's called cognitive dissonance, right? There's so much that's going on. There's so much that we're trying to manage that we start to feel this dissonance. Now, imagine that happening on a team or organizational level, right? Like it's not just you with all your decision-making.

It's a whole group of people with all the decision making, both individually and collectively that needs to happen. And then when we start to second guess or we overthink or we're just tired and you've got decision fatigue without any insight into how or why decisions are made, we feel burnout, disengagement, and we even see distrust begin to form, right? I love that phrase, cognitive dissonance and thinking about

What does that feel like organizationally? know what it feels like personally. What does that feel like organizationally? And we know, we've been there. We've all experienced it where it's kind of just like gridlock in your organization because maybe nobody's making decisions or maybe it feels like everything's out of control because everybody's making decisions but they're not making them with the whole team or the whole organization in mind. This is why decision-making and knowing how to lead through it.

Jenni Catron (04:50.986)
is so important as a leader, right? That there is so much going on inside of an organization and the more clarity, there's my favorite word, the more clarity we can bring to decision making, the more positively it contributes to our culture.

So here's a couple of just key ideas to frame up our conversation today. Decision-making doesn't happen in a vacuum, right? Everybody on your team impacts everybody else. Every decision reflects who holds authority, how power is distributed, what your organization actually values. Our decisions tell us a lot about what's most important to us. We know this personally.

Right? We've all heard the old adage, take out your checkbook, which is a little outdated. So maybe pull up your bank account and where you spend your money is a reflection of what's important to you. Right? It's a reflection of what you value. Well, the same thing is true in your organization, your decisions, the decisions you make are reflecting what's most important. And so we want to make sure that the decisions we're making are really aligned with our values and they're providing the level of clarity that helps.

every person on our team succeed. So I want to share with you today, three keys to clear, confident decision-making. Three keys to clear, confident decision-making. These are not monumental. These are not going to overwhelm you. They're really meant to be reminders because as a leader, whether you're leading a volunteer team, a staff team, a whole company, a whole organization, or something in between,

where whatever team you have influence over, whatever sphere of influence you have, you are making decisions, you are guiding how decisions are being made. And I wanna equip you to do that more clearly and confidently because your team and you frankly are gonna benefit from that. So the first key to clear confident decision-making is to define the who. Who is responsible for making which types of decisions?

Jenni Catron (07:02.616)
Who is responsible for making which types of decisions? You know, one of my favorite questions is who's doing what by when? Who's doing what by when? That's such a simple, simple question that provides so much clarity. And this is true about decision-making. Who is responsible for making which decisions? I'm in a lot of conversations with teams right now of them just saying, hey, how are decisions made? Who's supposed to make that decision? And the larger your organization is, the more complex it is, the harder

it gets to answer that question. So who is responsible? And then is it clear to the whole team? Does the whole you might know, particularly as the leader, you might quickly go, well, this person makes this decision and this person makes this decision and this person makes this decision. And you know in your head who should be making the decisions. But the question is, is it clear to them? And is it clear to the whole team? And then the the the piece that really pulls this together.

is your org chart. Does your org chart support who makes decisions and what decisions do they make to make? Are they supposed to make? One of the often unexpected decision-making tools that you have is your org chart. And this always surprises leaders when I'm talking to them, because it's one of the first questions that I ask. If I'm working with a team, I want to see their org chart. I want to see how they're organized to do the work. Les McEwen in his work, Predictable Success,

says that your org chart is your decision making machine. It is the machine for decision making. And I absolutely, 100 % agree with him on this. That if your org chart is clear, if the roles and responsibilities are clear, then it sets the framework for who makes what decisions. Everything kind of unpacks from that. So when our org charts are unclear, decision making feels arbitrary.

It's like, well, you sometimes this person makes the decision and sometimes this person does. And I really don't know why, because their title is technically this, but they made a decision about this. And, you know, they have this responsibility over here, but they spoke into this decision over here and I'm not really sure why. And then this is where we hear people saying, well, they just pick their favorites to make decisions, or they just talk to the people that they like the most. Right.

Jenni Catron (09:26.53)
people begin to fill the gap in with their assumptions or fears. And so when we don't have a clear organizational chart that clarifies everybody's role, their responsibility, and like their level of authority in the organization, then they're not entirely sure why some people make decisions and others don't, or some people make these decisions and are invited into these conversations, but other people are not. So a clear organizational chart helps determine

Who makes what decisions? When people understand who decides what, confidence rises and second guessing decreases. So you just wanna be intentional with making sure you've clarified who. Who makes decisions? Structure and culture go hand in hand. If your structure is vague, your decisions will feel vague as well. So your first step, your first key is define the who.

Make sure that org chart is solid. Secondly, align decisions with values. Are you making decisions that reflect your stated values? Most of you have values. You all, if you've been a listener to the podcast or if you've dug into the lead culture framework, you know that values are kind of those building, those core building blocks to healthy culture, right? They set the guardrails. They kind of give us the parameters for this is who we are and how we work together.

And so your values are really, really important. If you haven't done values work, you need to go make sure you're doing that. But we also need to make sure we're, working aligned to those values. So particularly when we're talking about decision-making, you want to make sure that your decisions reflect your values. So here's a couple of examples. If you value collaboration, our decisions made in collaboration. So maybe you have a value of collaboration.

but then are you directing every decision? See how those start to be incongruent or maybe you value transparency. You want this very open culture where everybody's brought into the right information, but are you making decisions and then not sharing the details, right? So think about your values and then think about your decision-making and you'll start to get a sense of, we incongruent? Because that incongruency

Jenni Catron (11:53.528)
can lead to a little mistrust organizationally. When your team sees that your decisions reflect your values, trust goes up and resistance goes down. So align your decisions with your values. Number three, communicate the why. Don't just make a decision. You are the leader. You need to make decisions at times. You need to delegate the other decisions that you need to delegate. But when you make a decision,

make sure that you've explained it, right? Make sure that you are giving perspective or context. Connect the dots for your team. Help them understand the why behind your decision. They're not always gonna agree with it, right? Like your team is not gonna agree with every decision that you make or every decision that the team makes, but clarity brings alignment. So even if the outcome isn't what every person hoped for,

If they understand why you made the decision that you made, they will follow you more, they're more likely to follow you and go along with that decision. And so your people don't need to agree with every decision, but they do need to understand it. When they have an understanding, like, okay, I may not agree with them. I might not see it the same way, but he explained it. I understand why he made the decision. And so I'm choosing to follow that.

It's a huge piece in trust building and creating alignment organizationally. So do your team members know how decisions are made? It's actually one of my favorite questions when I'm working with a team, we're working on culture. I'll say, Hey, tell me how you make decisions here. And typically I get like deer in the headlights. Everybody's kind of wide eyed and looking at one another going, I don't know how we make decisions. Doesn't the leader just make the decision or.

We all kind of get in a room and somehow we end up getting to a decision or we all talk about things and eventually somebody decides or it's usually a very convoluted explanation of how decisions are made. So my question to you is, your team know how decisions are made? Talk about it, think about it. See leaders, sometimes we so intuitively know how we do things or why we'll sometimes make a decision on our own and then sometimes make it in a group and

Jenni Catron (14:17.122)
But to people, not us, to the rest of the team, they can't quite understand your thought process behind it. And really you're often going with your gut. You're often responding to what may be patterns that you've seen in the past or just your instincts and insights. And that's all informing. Like all of your history is forming your decision-making.

but they don't always understand that. They don't always know it. And it might not always be the right way to make decisions, frankly. Like it might work for you, but is it serving your entire team? So do your team members know how decisions are made? And I would back it up one and I would go, do you know how decisions are made so that you can then tell your team how decisions are made? Is your org chart clear about who makes what decisions? So again, how clear is that org chart?

Well, does it lay out roles, responsibilities, level of authority, and who makes decisions about what? Are your decisions consistent with your values or do they contradict them? Have an honest conversation about that. It's a good one to have in conversation with your team. I would just say, hey, here's our values. And then let's talk about how we make decisions. Where have we made decisions aligned with values? Where have we made decisions not aligned with values? So let me give you a couple of next steps.

Pick one recent decision and ask, was it clear? Was it aligned with our values? And did I communicate it well? Pick one recent decision, just kind of workshop this a little bit. One recent decision and ask yourself, was it clear? Was it aligned with our values? And did I communicate it well? Secondly, revisit your team's org chart, pull it out, look at that thing. Is it current? Is it, you know, does it reflect?

how decisions are made. Is decision authority obvious? And then share that with the team. Talk it through. And then finally, in your next meeting, invite the team into your decision-making lens. Show them the process. Show them how you think about decision-making. Revisit the org chart. Talk about how you reflected on a recent decision and what you learned from that reflection.

Jenni Catron (16:40.834)
We don't fix this stuff overnight, leaders, but when we commit to taking just some good next steps, we begin to provide more and more clarity. So pick one recent decision and ask, was it clear? Was it aligned with values? Did we communicate it well? Revisit your org chart, and then in your next meeting, invite the team in and share your decision-making process.

I promise you, it's gonna spark some really good conversations, both for yourself and your reflection, and then with your team. And it's going to lead to a level of clarity that makes decision-making stronger in your culture. And then next week, we are going to continue the series talking about another really fun and dicey topic, delegation. I love this one because guys, I am a bad delegator. I'm a control freak. I like to do it all myself.

but I can't do things by myself. I need a team and I love a good team. Y'all know that I love working with great people and getting good work done, but I struggle to delegate well. And so I'm going to talk you through some steps on how do we delegate? Well, how do we let go to grow? Really, really important topic for every one of us at every level of leadership. So that's coming next week in the in between clarity and decision making.

is leadership stewardship. It's not just about being decisive, it's about being consistent, values aligned, and clear. Your decisions shape more than outcomes, they shape your culture. So this week, my friends, lead with clarity, know who owns the decision, make sure the decision reflects your values, communicate the why, and keep leading well. That's why we build cultures where people trust the process and stay

engaged, even when the outcomes aren't easy. This is what strong teams look like. So if you found this episode helpful, if it got you thinking, share it with a friend, rate it and review it, and then come back next week and we'll dig into the topic of delegation. Thanks, friends, and have a great week.