Coaches & Leadership
You made a call. And you’re not sure it was right.
Not because you were careless or arbitrary. You thought it through. You gathered what information was available. You made the best decision you could with what you had.
And now you’re in the aftermath, watching how it’s playing out, second-guessing in the specific way that only leaders who take their decisions seriously do.
Read this passage slowly.
For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisers.
Proverbs 11:14 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Many advisers. Proverbs returns to this principle repeatedly — the wisdom of seeking counsel, of not being isolated in the decision-making process. The implication is not that the leader can’t make decisions alone. It’s that good decisions are almost always informed by more than one perspective.
Here’s the question worth asking about the decision you’re second-guessing: did you make it with the best available information, with appropriate counsel, aligned with the values you’re committed to? If the answer to those three questions is yes — then the second-guessing is not about whether you made the right decision. It’s about whether the outcome validates it. And outcomes are not fully in your control.
The leader who can only evaluate their decisions by the outcome will be perpetually anxious, because outcomes involve variables outside the decision-maker’s control. The leader who evaluates their decisions by the quality of the process — the information gathered, the counsel sought, the values applied — has a more stable foundation for the second-guessing that inevitably follows a hard call.
Did you do the process well? If yes — the decision was the best available, even if the outcome isn’t what you hoped. If no — learn from the process failure rather than just the outcome failure. Either way: you made it. You can’t unmake it. Now lead through the results of it with the same integrity you applied to making it.
The leader who evaluates decisions only by outcomes will always be anxious. The one who evaluates by process has a more stable foundation.
Was the process good — best available information, appropriate counsel, values applied? If yes, what specifically are you second-guessing, and is that second-guessing warranted?
Process evaluation rather than outcome evaluation. This reframe is the whole point.
You made it. Lead through the results with the same integrity you used to make it.
This is most appropriately used as a private reflection for a coach or in a small trusted leadership group. It’s too specific to decision-making to work in a full team setting.