Mike 
If you watch any televised sporting event, you’ll see slow motion replays. In fact, more time may be devoted to the replays than to live action. Along with the replays you will hear a stream of “expert” commentary, applauding exceptional feats and criticizing mistakes. What you won’t hear is a commentator saying, “Yeah, that ref made an error, but in real-time, it would have been really hard to see that.”
We seem to have developed a “replay everything” culture that makes leadership much more difficult. Admittedly, strategic leadership decisions are usually made over days or weeks, not in a split-second. Nevertheless, decisions about priorities, new initiatives, and resource allocation are still subject to constant second-guessing. If things don’t go as planned, someone can always point to overlooked information that could have resulted in a different decision. This is especially true in a church or ministry where it seems that everyone feels qualified to be the expert commentator in the broadcast booth.
Referees can’t keep television commentators from pointing out bad calls, and leaders can’t prevent their critics from second-guessing decisions. So what can you do?
- Don’t make important decisions by yourself. You need the wisdom and perspective of a leadership team (staff and/or volunteers) in order to make the best decisions.
- Establish expectations for post-decision behavior. The leadership team should be able to have intense debates while making a decision, but then they must lock arms and show their support for whatever decision is made.
- If your tendency is ready-fire-aim, slow down. Leaders should not allow things drag out for too long, but they must also recognize the risks of moving too quickly with too little information.
- If you tend ready-aim–aim-aim-aim … fire, realize that you’ll never have all the information with which to make a perfect decision. It is often better to move today with 90% confidence, than to wait for weeks to be 98% confident. (You’ll never be 100%.)
