Question One
According to the article “why good leaders make bad decisions,” Campbell et al note that some misleading memories may seem comparable to current situations hence prompting a leader to make the wrong decisions. Based on the assignment that we did in week four, I believe workplace stress is a red flag that might predispose a leader into making an inappropriate decision.
Decision-making is one of the primary responsibilities of our professional and personal lives. However, our decision-making processes primarily rely on two hardwired processes which include pattern recognition and emotional tagging. Although the two processes are crucial in decision making, they can be misleading to a leader (Campbell et al., 2009). If a leader who is under stress is needed to make a decision, he or she may rely on the presence of misleading memories. Some leaders may use past memories which may seem relevant and comparable to the current situation (Campbell et al., 2009). However, some of these memories may lead the thinking of most leaders to the wrong path. Such issues may prompt a leader to overlook or undervalue some crucial differentiating factors hence making the wrong decisions an aspect that may predispose them to face negative criticism.
Question Two
Every person has decision-making capabilities. However, when an individual’s interest overrides that an entire whole group, decision-making becomes distorted. When working within group-like organizations, it is important to focus on the interest of a group, however, individual self-interest works off basic survival predispositions hence contradicting that of a group. Based on such aspects, looking for impartial consultations can be the best make decisions favoring a group or organization.
Culture has an influence on self-interest: an aspect that may affect decision-making. When comparing North Americans and East Asians, North Americans tend to seek out popular information versus unpopular opinions (Li et al., 2015). Additionally, North Americans tend to focus on few foundations of a problem while East Asians tend to focus on potential associations to multiple antecedent causes (Li et al., 2015). Based on such aspects, due to the cultural variations between North Americans and East Asians, their psychological process will determine the decision they make in each situation.
References
Campbell, A., Whitehead, J., & Finkelstein, S. (2009). Why good leaders make bad decisions. Harvard business review, 87(2), 60-66. https://hbr.org/2009/02/why-good-leaders-make-bad-decisions
Li, L. M. W., Masuda, T., & Russell, M. J. (2015). Culture and decision‐making: Investigating cultural variations in the East Asian and North American online decision‐making processes. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 18(3), 183-191. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajsp.12099
