leadingtoday.org

Leadership Tip of the Month

December 2003

Copyright 2003 ã weLEAD, Inc.

After the Big Decision is Made…

It’s finally happened! After a series of meetings and hours of collaboration a big decision has been made. It was an important event and it took a tremendous amount of resources and energy to come to the right conclusion. What are the next few essential things a leader must do? Many leaders have failed to use the proper skills to implement an important decision and have been shocked to see it flounder! Leadership does not end when a decision is made. The next few important steps help to achieve closure and ensure the decision is truly implemented. Here are three valuable points to consider.

Forward a summary of all the decisions made during the meeting.

Send a memo to everyone involved outlining what was decided at the meeting and what agreements were reached. You do not want individuals leaving the meeting who are misinterpreting the results or conclusion. You also don’t want anyone to forget what was settled or ignore any assignments which were given. Your short written summary should include the meeting date, time, decisions made and results expected. This is also a good time to announce the time and location for a follow-up meeting. This puts everyone on notice that action should not be delayed until the last minute.

Assign and clarify everyone’s responsibilities to implement the decision.

Preferably this should be done during the meeting. However if it was not, it is important that a crucial “action plan” is formalized and individuals assigned certain responsibilities. If this is not done most followers will assume it is someone else’s responsibility to complete important tasks. Secondly, a number of individuals may collide while working on the same task. You don’t want group members duplicating the very same efforts or tasks. The decision(s) made are too important to be ambiguous or confusing.

Conduct a follow-up meeting to survey progress.

Many good group decisions have become unsuccessful because no one followed through with the original conclusion. When a leader schedules a meeting and personally conducts it, there is a strong degree of importance and immediacy assigned within the minds of the followers. This becomes a priority and individuals make an extra effort to come to the meeting prepared to show they are meeting their responsibilities! This is the time to ask questions, probe for any obstacles that have been encountered and encourage others on what has been accomplished.

These simple steps can help a good decision become a reality. Leadership is a process that must be exercised from beginning to end.

For weLEAD, this is Greg Thomas reminding you that it was Benjamin Franklin who wrote, “The busy man has few idle visitors; to the boiling pot the flies come not.”

On the weLEAD Website you will find over 70 other free helpful leadership tips. They are all available in a text version or as an MP3 audio!