A huge component of leadership is problem solving, which is about making decisions and taking action.

Leadership decisions are usually about difficult and ambiguous problems. There are almost always several reasonable decisions that could be made to solve any given problem.

The bigger, more complex, more innovative, or longer-term the decision, the harder it is to know if you’ve made the right decision.

No matter which direction you decide to go there will be a significant number of people who can reasonably argue you should have gone the other way.

The best decision is often just the decision that makes the most sense given the limited amount of information and resources available at the time. As soon as circumstances change, that decision will quickly become the wrong decision.

The right decision is often not the comfortable, easy, or popular decision. And the comfortable, easy, or popular is often not the right decision.

People will hate you for making the wrong decision or the decision that’s not theirs or the decision that involves any change or just for being the leader and they need someone to hate.

As leader you will be blamed for everything that goes wrong. And given minimal credit for what goes right.

Chances are, school has taught you business is about numbers, logic, fact, and figures. But it’s not. It’s about people.

It’s nearly impossible to lead people using numbers, logic, fact, and figures.

Good luck.