Critical Thinking and Decision Making

Leaders are given the day in and day out task of making critical decisions. How do they make them? The best leaders use critical thinking skills. My experience as an observer of good leaders has taught me that they consider the propositions they are handed and make judgments about which way to decide based upon well-supported evidence. What does that mean you might ask? Faced with making judgments or decisions that could have a long term or for that matter short term impact, they first ask themselves what is it they are being asked to support, believe or accept. They ask for recommendations, supporting documents and they scrutinize the reliability, validity and overall credibility of the evidence they have been presented. However, they don’t stop there. They ask for alternative views, distaff perspectives and other ways of interpreting the information given to them. They want to know the reliability, the biases, the credibility of the sources of evidence and furthermore, the person(s) bringing it to them. Finally, they ask for any “other stones” left unturned to be picked up for any last reasonable explanation. It is only then that they make a reasoned thoughtful decision based on the evidence and alternative viewpoints/perspectives presented that will have impact on the greatest good, the common good of the business, organization, community or country they serve as the leader. They don’t allow decisions to be made simply on emotion, or self serving data or evidence that benefits only themselves. There is no doubt critical thinking is hard work. I wonder how hard decision makers are willing to work.
That brings me to the first Tuesday in November. Tomorrow is Election Day. Clearly this mid-term may very well be one of the more important in recent history. How critically have we, you, and I thought, reflected and truly studied the evidence presented to us by those who bring that evidence to us? Do we allow ourselves to make decisions based on hard data; do we listen to alternative points of view? Do we “turn over” all the stones in the mine that today’s political and media driven machines throw at us? I hope so.