When Decisions You Don’t Agree With Come Down From Above

On occasion, a decision that a team leader doesn’t agree with comes rolling downhill from higher up in the organization. 

Those on the receiving end of the decision may strongly believe that the decision is wrong-headed, creates risk, or has significant unintentional consequences. 

Perhaps they have had the chance to argue against the decision but have failed to influence the outcome, or maybe the decision has come down from above  as a directive without seeking any of their input. 

In either case, they are stuck with a decision they don’t like.  

Should the leader be transparent in their opposition to the decision but tell the team they must execute it anyway?  Or should they engage as if the decision is their own and risk alienating the team and losing their respect? 

The answer to these questions comes down to how a leader views their obligations to the larger organization and to their role as a leader. Good leaders understand they are obligated to hold the organization and its interests above their personal choices and those of the team. 

The very idea of leadership suggests that everyone aligns with what is in the best interest of the enterprise. What is ultimately best for any organization is full alignment behind the many decisions made throughout the enterprise. Top-down and otherwise. 

To sustain the forward progress of the organization, leaders at every level must rally together around the core values, principles, and actions of the enterprise. The default position is that any decision decided elsewhere in the organization is to be supported fully by every leader. 

Leaders must carry the flag for each and every decision, and that flag must go to the very top of the flagpole. Unless the decision is unethical, immoral, or illegal, the obligation of any leader in the organization is to support it as if it were their own. 

Speaking with the team about the decision doesn’t require leaders to lack transparency or honesty. It’s all about emphasis and conviction. 

The team can learn, if it doesn’t already know, that the decision is not one a leader agrees with. Once that is out in the open but not elaborated on, good leaders make a strong pitch that they are 100 percent behind executing the decision. 

They offer the conviction necessary to convince others that they fully support the decision—because they do, not because they are expected to. “We” versus “They” doesn’t come up for one important reason: the Leader is always part of the “They,” even when they represent a specific team that prides itself as “We.” 

Leaders who violate this obligation and implicit contract lose credibility in all directions over time. Those leaders who couch their disagreement by holding themselves apart from the larger organization, usually as a way of garnering a stronger “We,” will promote the same idea within the team.

Team members will quickly realize that disagreeing with the leader’s decisions is both acceptable and normative. Teams with leaders who fail to hold the organization’s decisions as their own will often find it exceedingly difficult to create consensus on any topic where others take a different view. 

Leaders who don’t carry the organization’s flag soon find many different flags within their own team. Disagreement is one thing. Commitment after disagreement is another. 

Perhaps that is why “disagree and commit” is such a powerful principle in many of the best organizations. Great leaders are always more committed to the larger good than they are to the disagreements they hold regarding any one decision.