A Framework for Leaders Facing Difficult Decisions
Many traditional decision-making tools fall short when it comes to the complex, subjective decisions that today’s leaders face every day. In this piece, the author provides a simple framework to help guide leaders through these difficult decisions. By interrogating the ethics (what is viewed as acceptable in your organization or society), morals (your internal sense of right and wrong), and responsibilities associated with your specific role, you can begin to understand how different courses of action align with these different values, and make informed decisions when they inevitably come into conflict. While there are no easy answers, proactively thinking about your decisions through these three distinct lenses — and recognizing where your past actions may have been inconsistent with these values — is the key to leading with integrity.
Many decision-making frameworks aim to help leaders use objective information to mitigate bias, operate under time pressure, or leverage data. But these frameworks tend to fall short when it comes to decisions based on subjective information sources that suggest conflicting courses of action. And most complex decisions fall into this category.
Specifically, every complex leadership decision must balance three subjective dimensions:
Unsurprisingly, these considerations often come into conflict. When this happens, there are no easy answers — but by carefully interrogating these three dimensions, leaders can move forward with confidence that the decisions they make reflect the best possible balance among their different principles.
Consider a CEO facing the decision of whether or not to lay off employees during a recession. Filtered through the lens of morality, she might feel that taking away an individual’s livelihood in such a hard time would be immoral. Ethics, however, demand that leaders weigh the tradeoff between the wellbeing of a smaller number of individuals and the potential for risk to the entire organization. And if she believes her role requires her to protect the interests of as many of the organization’s key stakeholders as possible — including shareholders, employees, customers, and community members — then she may conclude that her job demands that she lay off employees to protect the majority of the organization. This suggests that the requirements of her role align with her ethics but conflict with her personal morality. This simplifies the decision down to a choice between 1) attempting to persuade key stakeholders to align the expectations of her role with her personal morality; or 2) sacrificing her individual views for the greater good.
Adding further complexity to difficult decisions like this one is the fact that none of the three dimensions are static. As recently as 2014, for example, an apolitical approach was broadly perceived as the right ethical framework for leaders; today, many employees and consumers demand that leaders take a strong stance on social issues. Leaders must continuously update their understanding of the ethical framework demanded by their current context.
Staying abreast of these ethical shifts — and understanding the rationales behind them — may inspire leaders to investigate and adapt their own views accordingly as well. In particular, surrounding yourself with a diverse team that elicits different perspectives based on different experiences, values, or education will help you to continuously refine your own moral code.
Finally, your role (and your understanding of that role) is likely to change many times over the course of your career. Are you obligated to all stakeholders equally? What results do different stakeholders expect and whose expectations are most important? Should employees, customers, and communities be treated with the same regard as owners and investors? These are all questions that will have to be evaluated and reevaluated as your roles evolves.
Learning to recognize and balance these dynamic priorities is key to leading with integrity. There aren’t any shortcuts, but actively investigating your own values and seeking — or driving — alignment between at least two of the three corners of the morals-ethics-role triangle will give you the tools you need to make the difficult decisions that all leaders face. Below, I offer five sets of questions to ask yourself that will help you better understand, develop, and articulate your ethical, moral, and role responsibilities.
Without judgment, only observation, ask yourself:
For example, the CEO grappling with laying off employees during a downturn might articulate her desire to be experienced as both savvy and compassionate, her belief that business exists to generate wealth for individuals and communities, her view that the purpose of her specific business is to improve people’s quality of life, and her understanding that fulfilling these goals requires the business to be profitable.
Again, without judgment, only observation, ask yourself:
After embracing her desire to be experienced as both compassionate and savvy, the CEO might recognize that there have been some situations in the past where she asserted one characteristic more than the other. This reflection could lead her to conclude that she actually values one of those traits more than the other, or it could lead her to conclude that her past actions have been inconsistent with her morals, ethics, and/or role responsibilities, and that future actions should align more closely with these values.
Consider the following:
In the case of the layoffs decision, the CEO can see that the expectations of her role are aligned with her ethical context, but she is unable to reconcile this with her personal moral code. She is therefore left with a small range of options: ignore her role responsibilities (a choice she can make only once, as it’s likely to lead to her removal as CEO); sacrifice her morality (a descent into hypocrisy which few can stomach); attempt to influence key stakeholders to shift their expectations of her role to align with her morality; or recalibrate her understanding of her own morality to align with her role responsibilities and ethics.
Consider the following:
In these situations, nuance does not work to your advantage. It’s natural to have mixed emotions, but as a leader, you must send a clear, consistent message. Articulate what you stand for with clarity, and people will understand the decision — even if they don’t like it. Even if the CEO genuinely feels sadness, anger, or disappointment at the prospect of laying off her employees, she must avoid a defensive focus on her own feelings and instead center her communication around the reasons for the decision and how they align with the morals, ethics, and role responsibilities she has always held.
This is the hardest part. Now that you’ve completed the exercise, ask yourself:
This process isn’t easy. In fact, research has demonstrated that people with a weaker sense of morality tend to have an easier time reconciling these high-stakes dilemmas, potentially helping to explain the prevalence of leaders with psychopathic tendencies. But that’s all the more reason to invest in understanding and cultivating your own values, ensuring that you serve as a force for good in an arena rife with less-than-moral players.
The more you explore your own decision-making framework in the abstract, the better equipped you will be to make tough calls when the job requires it. Each of these decisions will help you further sharpen your understanding of your underlying morals, the role that you are fulfilling, and the ethical context in which you are operating — just in time to make your next difficult choice.
A Framework for Leaders Facing Difficult Decisions
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