You’ve gathered the information.
You’ve talked to the people you trust.
You’ve considered the options.
And you’re still asking yourself:
How do I know I’m making the right decision?
For leaders or anyone facing consequential decisions, that question can be difficult to put down.
Because the stakes are real.
A decision can affect your team, your organization, your career, your family—or all of them at once.
So you think about it some more.
You gather another piece of information. Ask another person. Run through the possibilities one more time.
You want to be sure. But eventually, you run into an uncomfortable reality:
You cannot know the outcome of a decision you haven’t made yet.
That doesn’t mean you should make it carelessly.
It means you need a different standard for making it well.
Instead of asking:
How can I be certain this is the right decision?
Try asking:
What do I need to understand to make a decision I can stand behind?
That is the need I had in mind when I created the Highroads Decision Process.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve walked through its five steps:
1. Clarify the decision. What are you actually deciding?
2. Identify your values. What matters enough to guide the choice?
3. Recognize reality. What is true right now—even if you wish it were different?
4. Consider the trade-offs. What does each choice ask you to accept, give up, risk or protect?
5. Take the next aligned step. Given what you now know, what are you prepared to do?
There is something important about those questions.
None of them tells you what to do. That is intentional.
As a coach, I don’t believe my role is to make a someone’s decisions for them.
You know your organization, your family, your situation. You know your responsibilities.
You know the people who will be affected.
And ultimately, you are the person who will live with the decision.
My role is different.
I help individuals create the space to think clearly when a decision feels complicated.
I ask the questions that help uncover what may be getting lost beneath the pressure.
I help them separate what matters from what is simply loud.
I help them look directly at the reality and the trade-offs rather than rushing past them in search of an easier answer.
And then I trust them to decide.
Because the goal of a good decision process isn’t to guarantee the outcome.
No process can do that.
The goal is to know that when you made the decision, you understood what you were choosing and why.
Later, you may learn something you couldn’t have known.
Circumstances may change. The outcome may surprise you.
And if the reality changes, you can reassess.
But that is very different from looking backward and assuming that an unexpected outcome means you made the wrong decision.
Leadership in all areas of life or work doesn’t come with that kind of certainty.
Sometimes the best you can do is make the most thoughtful decision available to you with the information, values and reality in front of you.
That is what I want leaders and individuals to have.
Not my answer.
Not someone else’s certainty.
A decision they understand, own and can stand behind.
Your Highroad is paved with your values.