Whether you are an appointed leader, elected leader, or leader by virtue of the position you hold within an organization or company, you are looked upon often to make tough decisions. Those decisions could affect thousands of lives, could determine the path that an organization will take or could determine the future of a company. At the end of the day, as a leader it is your job to make the tough decisions, after all, that is why you are the leader in the first place.

That is not to say that every decision that you make as a leader should be done in a vacum, there are plenty of times where decisions that are to be made make sense to be made by gaining consensus of the rest of the group. I believe that in these situations, the leader usually has not come to a conclusion or has a strong opinion either way on the matter, and therefore by gaining the collective knowledge and agreement from the group, a wise decision can be made. This is where gaining consensus makes sense and seems to work. Where it seems to fall apart is when a leader has already formed an opinion and is merely placating the group by asking their opinions when in fact the leader has already made up his/her mind and would prefer to convince the group to see it their way.

As the leader, if you have already made up your mind on what the decision is going to be, you have most likely weighed all the options, gathered all the information necessary to make the decision and have examined whether or not said decision is in the best interest of your group. If you have done this, then there is no need (at least in my mind)to gain consensus of the group if you have already made up your mind. You are the leader, state this is how it is going to be, and move on. It is your job to provide the guidance and direction for the group and to make sure that you are making the right choices to keep the group on course. It does not mean that everyone has to agree with your decision, in fact there is a good chance that there are those that will not, but remember, it is your neck on the line to provide what is best for the group.

Tough decisions are yours to make, so make them and remember that not everyone will agree, but as long as you are doing it in the best interest of the group, in the long run everyone will benefit from your decisions.