Decide to Lead: Building Capacity and Leveraging Change through Decision-Making

Decide to Lead explores decision-making and all its complexity. Decision-making is, and has always been at the heart and soul of leadership activity. Leaders are responsible and held accountable for the decisions that are made within the organization, whether they personally make them or not. Enhanced with resources and questions for further reflection, Decide to Lead examines decision-making through the lens of a leader. The book addresses what leaders know: knowledge of self, knowledge of others, and knowledge of one’s community and context; how leaders think, with a focus on cognitive systems and the forces that influence decision-making; and what leaders do to set up the conditions for effective decision-making in their organizations. This includes leader actions such as building capacity, designing a decision friendly organizational architecture and effectively employing decision-making models and processes.

Mary B. Herrmann is a clinical assistant professor in the Education Policy, Organization and Leadership Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Mary has had extensive building and district level leadership experience including serving as superintendent of three Mid-western school districts.