How to Improve Your Decision-Making Skills

Key takeaways

Decision-making skills are abilities you use to choose between two or more options in the workplace.

• Good decision-making skills can help you better understand a problem, motivate your teammates, demonstrate your leadership potential, and reach goals quickly.

• Decision-making skills are closely tied to other essential workplace skills, like research, teamwork, creativity, adaptability, reasoning, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

• You can arrive at a decision by first defining your problem, analyzing data to identify possible solutions, weighing each solution, choosing one, and finally evaluating the decision’s outcome.

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What are decision-making skills, and why are they important?

Decision-making skills are the strategies you use to make a choice between two or more options. In the workplace, the choice you need to make is often important and can have a big impact on your job, your colleagues, and the organization for which you work. These decisions may not be as simple as your everyday decisions, like what to have for dinner or which shirt to wear. 

You may have to choose which person to hire, which marketing campaign to implement, which strategy to use to meet a goal, or which person to delegate a certain project to. If you make the wrong decision, it can have consequences that can impact other people's lives. This is especially true if you are a manager or in another leadership position.

Improving your decision-making skills can help you, too. The more you improve, the better you can understand a situation, analyze it, and develop the right solution. This can make you a more productive worker overall because you aren't wasting time going back and forth between various options. An employee, whether you're working in an entry-level position or as a leader, can benefit from good decision-making skills for other reasons, too. Some of these benefits include:

• You inspire your employees and colleagues to respect and trust you. 

• You motivate those around you to work on their own skills when they need to make a decision.

• You can help your team, department, or organization reach certain goals faster. 

• You can show your bosses that you would make a good leader if you're not one already, which may eventually help you land a promotion.

• You'll be stronger in an emergency situation. 

• You can help prevent conflict if employees or colleagues are debating a decision.

Read more: What Is Data-Driven Decision-Making (DDDM)?

What are some of the skills you need to make good decisions?

The decision-making process at work usually includes five main steps: 

1. Defining the problem: First, you'll identify the problem that requires you to make a decision. 

2. Identify possible solutions: Next, you'll develop several potential solutions. This might include research, looking at data, analyzing information, communicating with colleagues, and other tasks that help you gather what you need to create informed solutions.

3. Analyze the options: Once you do that, you'll weigh the options by analyzing the pros and cons of each solution.

4. Choose a solution: Once you've looked at the good and bad that can come from each potential solution, you'll choose one. You may make some slight changes to it or even combine it with another solution. If necessary, share your decision with your team or supervisor.

5. Assess the outcome: Finally, you'll evaluate the results of your decision to determine if the problem is solved. You will note what went well and what can be improved to address the problem further or make future decisions. 

As you might have noticed, the steps you take to make a decision require you to use many other workplace or human skills, like:

• Research

• Investigation

• Teamwork and collaboration

• Creativity

• Adaptability

• Analysis

• Active listening

• Logic

• Reasoning

• Willingness to learn 

• Critical thinking

• Problem-solving

• Time management

• Emotional intelligence 

Most workplace tasks and activities will require a combination of these and other human skills, which further proves why these are just as important as your technical skills, certifications, degrees, and work experience. Some employers even state that demonstrating these skills can give a job candidate a competitive edge over another applicant. 

What are the 5 keys of decision-making?

The five key elements of decision-making are:

• Information: Gather all necessary data to inform your decision, like past solutions to similar problems and known risks.

• Humility: Consult and take the opinions of experts and others in your teams.

• Perspective: Consider emotional, historical, and cultural perspectives to better understand all the aspects of your problem.

• Workplace culture: Foster a collaborative decision-making environment and avoid the top-down decision-making approach.

• Planning: Create an adaptable and data-informed plan that also incorporates a feedback loop.

How can you improve your decision-making skills?

Fortunately, like any other skill, you can improve your decision-making skills when needed. You can take steps during the decision-making process to make it easier now and in the future, and there are things you can do every day that will help you improve your skills overall.

While making a decision 

If you're in the process of making a decision, try to do the following to help improve this important human skill: 

• Think about the reason for making a decision—who will it benefit? 

• Reflect on the outcomes of past important work decisions for any lessons you can glean from them. 

• Ask for an opinion from a mentor, supervisor, trusted friend, or an expert in the field.

• Set deadlines so you aren't stuck in an open-ended situation, but also give yourself enough time to make a fully formed decision.

• Be flexible. You may have a solution, but you may also have to compromise with a colleague or supervisor. 

• Identify problems that inhibit decision-making, like too little information, too many people involved, emotional attachment, too much information, and no interest in the outcome.

• Rely on logic rather than emotion, but trust your instincts. 

• If you have too many solutions, narrow them down to the few that make the most sense. 

• Re-evaluate your choice once you decide to ensure there's nothing you missed.

Tips on how to strengthen your decision-making skills every day

If you want to improve your decision-making skills for the future, you can do some things every day to help sharpen your mind and your human skills in general. Try the following: 

• Practice making pros and cons lists for minor decisions in your life. 

• Spend time with people of all ages and cultures.

• Experiment—learn to cook a new food or speak a new language. 

• Take time frequently to reflect on your past decisions, what went wrong, and what went right. 

• Indulge the creative part of your brain by participating in artistic and cultural endeavors. 

• Work on improving your other human skills that will help you make decisions, such as problem-solving, creativity, communication, and time management. 

• Consider taking online courses that help improve your human skills.

Helpful resources for your career journey 

Searching for more ways to grow? Get the latest insights into key skills and career trends in your industry by subscribing to our LinkedIn newsletter, Career Chat. If you need help deciding on a career track or want to keep exploring leadership skills and ideas, check out these free resources:

• Take the quiz: Career Test: What Career is Right for Me Quiz? 

• Watch on YouTube: 5 Powerful Leadership Skills to Start Building Today 

• Hear from a fellow learner: Meet the Engineer Strengthening His Leadership Skills 

Whether you want to develop a new skill, get comfortable with an in-demand technology, or advance your abilities, keep growing with a Coursera Plus subscription. You’ll get access to over 10,000 flexible courses.

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