One of the many things I am learning as part of my internship with Church Assistance Ministry is that decisive leadership happens after much thought and preparing. Interacting with CAM’s CEO, Steve Elliott, and observing him lead decisively after his own thought and preparation has been a learning experience for me.
Steve seems to discuss his thinking with others, share some of it in emails, gain feedback from others, then make a decision decisively. With the quarterly CAM Board meetings, Steve routinely proposes dates/times to the CAM Board about when and where to meet. After talking about it with people and gaining feedback via email, Steve then makes a decision decisively. Even if people have not always gotten back to him he makes a decision for the benefit of the entire group. Once he has thought through the decision and prepared, he makes the decision.
This has been encouraging to see because Steve does not waste precious time and energy by waiting until the very last minute to make decisions. The benefits of his decisive decisions are that they allow everyone else to keep moving and complete work. As someone who works in small leadership roles I hope to implement a decisive leadership style that emulates what Steve has modeled for me.
Question: What do you believe decisive leadership is and have you seen it lived out?
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