Part of leading is making tough choices - to let go a person you like, but who doesn't fit your team's needs; deciding how to allocate limited funding or time among so many worthy causes; enforcing high standards; the list of tough choices could go on for pages.
Often times, like in these examples, there are competing interests. Doing what's right and doing what's compassionate are often at odds.
Vineet Wahi, the current National President of Active 20-30 US & Canada, shared a short news clip with me recently and challenged me to think about what I would do if I were in the medical team's shoes.
At the heart of it, the team chose to deny a teen a heart transplant because he has a history of "not following doctor's orders" in the past. He's had run-ins with the law, but is still a person.
So let me pose a few questions for you that I pondered myself:What rules and facts would you take into account? Does the potential good (saving a life) outweigh the risk (that he won't follow instructions and the heart will be "wasted" on him)? What if he does follow medical instructions, but not the law and winds up in jail (not that we can tell the future) - is he still worth having saved?
This is an extreme example of a tough decision, but it gets us thinking about the respecively-tough ones we face as leaders every day.
What do you do to gather the information you need to make a tough decision? What do you do to ensure that you put the greater good above yourself (i.e., doing what's right vs what's popular)? How do you balance competing interests when you have to make a tough decision?
I would love to hear a discussion around this. If we're able to use the tough-ish decisions we face in our clubs and our daily lives as practice, we will find ourselves well-prepared for the tougher ones we'll face as we advance in our careers and service lives.
Please share your thoughts in the comments.
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