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I’ve heard many well-meaning, potentially great leaders who never achieve all they could, because their fears and doubts keep them from making hard decisions.

Let me tell you from experience:

You’ll never be 100% certain about a leadership decision.

Okay, maybe “never” is too far a stretch, but it’s at least 99% certain you’ll never be 100% certain. 🙂

The best leadership decisions are the hardest to make. You won’t have all the answers yet. You’ll still have some doubts. You may likely have a few (sometimes many) naysayers around saying it can’t be done, it won’t work, or they don’t want to change.

That’s what leadership does. It leads people where they need to go, but may not want to go. That’s hard. All of us like approval. Sometimes leadership doesn’t receive immediate approval. You often have to make decisions before you have complete certainty, even when you believe you’re following God’s will. Doubt and fears affect us all. We can question our own ability to hear from God. Others cloud our ability to discern. At some point, leaders lead in the direction they feel God is leading them to go, regardless of the other voices around them.

I have a friend who says, “If life takes you to a fork in the road, choose the hardest route. It’s often the one where God most wants to shape you.” The point of his saying is that faith is built by resistance to our doubts and fears. If it doesn’t stretch you, it’s probably not much of a worthy goal. The path of least resistance usually produces the least desirable results.

Leader, don’t be afraid to make the hard decisions. Seek wise counsel, follow God’s heart as closely as you can, answer all the questions you can, even try to kill your own ideas (Read about that HERE). At some point, leaders pull the trigger to do the best they know how to do for the people they lead.

Don’t be gun shy! Pull!

Be honest, do you struggle making decisions when you’re not 100% certain?

Have you ever followed a leader who couldn’t make the difficult decisions?

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Ron Edmondson

Author Ron Edmondson

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Join the discussion 9 Comments

  • Melissa says:

    There's only one thing I know for certain….and the rest I will leave up to HIm….even that heart tugging 'is it going to work' decision/question. To make the choice to Trust in Him WILL make us better leaders.

    A very timely post as I'm trying to make a pretty big decision at this very moment, to go with a gut feeling (God given of course).

    Thank you!

  • @Bryankr says:

    I like this, it is tough following a leader that is afraid to make the more difficult decisions. Teaching my kids at Church abouth Faith, I said that it required you be willing to step out on a limb then turn around and cut the limb off, because it was God that could support you in what you were doing. Even that could not be done unless you asked yourself what you believed about God! Do you really believe He can do this? Better yet, do you believe God WANTS to be that much a part of your life? Leading people is easy, but it's hard! You have great ideas, lots of energy to get it done with, but, when the tire meets the road, you find it requires far more of a personal investment than you thought!

  • Thank you for this.

  • Eric Barron says:

    Risk is so, well, risky! I believe if we as leaders dealt with failure in a more healthy and positive manner, that the risks won't seem so risky, and the consequences of a grand, but short-fallen attempt won't look so much like failure.

  • I think our inability to deal with risk lies at the heart of much of our procrastination as leaders. We keep wanting to think a little more and a little more and a little more – not in a God-honoring way, but in a self-protecting and ultimately selfish way.