Leaders have to make lots of decisions.
It goes with the job and not all decisions are the same. But the biggest decision a leader has to make is how are they going to lead? Are they going to be strong or weak? Are they going to make sure the team reaches their goals or are they going to just go along with the flow and hope for the best?
Strong leaders often get criticized
Being strong doesn’t require being mean, abrupt or egotistical. It’s nice if you can have strong leadership and great people skills as well. But the most important thing is to get the job done. The truth is without some people skills, no leader is going to be successful—but the problem is they have to make the tough decisions. When you make tough decisions:
- Not everyone is going to be happy.
- Not everyone is going to agree.
- Not everyone is going to benefit.
Usually those on the wrong side of the decision will wind up feeling the leader made a big mistake and that’s due to some big character flaw they have. As a result, criticism follows—and it always gets back to the leader.
All leaders want love and respect.
They want their team unified behind them. They want them to be unified and supportive. Unfortunately immature, inexperienced and weak leaders will want to be “loved” more than they want to get the job done. That’s a terrible mistake and results in weak leadership.
Weak or strong?
Every leader has to decide what’s more important to them. Are they more focused on getting the job done or keeping everyone happy? Unless a leader makes a definite decision to be strong they will be weak. The reason why, is the natural flow of events and necessity of making decisions puts constant pressure on the leader to not rock the boat, accommodate as many people as possible, and keep everyone happy. That means a leader is always pressured to make the easy and wrong decision.
Unless they keep their focus on getting the job done no matter what, they’ll be weak. The decision is theirs.
