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key is to get on board not only the people who can help make a smart
decision and execute it, but also the people who can derail it.

Once that judgment has been made, then it is important to mobilize the

resources, funding, people, information, and technology to make it
happen. So many good decisions and judgments fail to be properly or
effectively executed. This is such a waste of leadership and resources.

It is also important to respond correctly to a decision or judgment that

proves to be a mistake. This means there should be a willingness to
acknowledge mistakes made in judgment, such as staff assignments, and
rectify them quickly. After a lot of time and thought is put into making an
important decision, we understandably hesitate to undo all that work right
away. It is often easier to let a bad decision stand than to go through the

hassle of redoing it. However, any judgment made that is important to the
organization should be subject to modification along the way. This
assumes, of course, that the leader making the judgment is open to
feedback and committed to follow through with the appropriate input
received.

A final, and often overlooked, element of good judgment is reflection.
Reflection begins when you think about what the judgment you made says
about you. This can be facilitated by keeping a journal, and by blocking
time off on your calendar every three months or so to sit down and review
the key decisions you made over the previous year. 144 Encouraging leaders
to reflect also often requires them to be more aware of the emotions of the

people they are interacting with, which is very useful feedback if read
correctly.

In the end, it is a leader’s judgment that determines an organization’s
success or failure. On a more personal level, it is the sum of a leader’s

judgment calls that will be the basis that others will use to evaluate his or
her career, as well as his or her life accomplishments.
145

144 John R. Ryan, “Four Big Ways Leaders Exercise Good Judgment,” Forbes,
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/31/ceo-judgement-ego-leadership-managing-ccl.html.
145 Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis, “Making Judgment Calls,” Harvard Business Review, October
2007, http://hbr.org/2007/10/making-judgment-calls/ar/1.

David Kolzow 123