“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  

This is a critical truth taken from Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning.

Frankl was a holocaust survivor who was subjected to Nazi atrocities during WWII. He knew what it was to choose “one’s attitude” in the midst of horrific circumstances.

The greatest gift we have been given is our will – our ability to choose. No matter what, we can choose what we think, what we believe, what we do. Sure, that’s not easy, but the capacity for mankind to make wise choices in the face of incomprehensibly difficult circumstances is astounding. And, the converse is true as well: the ability for mankind to make incredibly poor choices in the midst of the best of circumstances and influences is confounding.

So, if you were to do an inventory of your choices how would you fair? Probably a mix of wise and foolish choices I assume. We are all similar in that regard. However, maturity is to learn from our poor choices so we make less of them and make more wise choices. Foolish is the leader who does not learn from his poor choices, and is, therefore, destined to repeat his mistakes.

We all have an equal opportunity to choose what we will think, believe and do. Awareness and education certainly play a significant role in our ability to make wise choices, but even in the midst of our ignorance we can choose to recognize we don’t know what we don’t know and then seek input from those wiser than us.

Regardless of the decisions we have made, the decisions we make, make us. We are all products of the decisions we make – what we embrace and what we reject. The decisions we have made have led us to where we are.  We can make decisions that lead to good outcomes, or ones that lead to bad outcomes.

So how can we make more wise choices? It starts with taking responsibility for making decisions. We need to reject a victim mentality – believing it’s someone else’s fault. “It’s his fault.” “It’s her fault.” It’s their fault.” No. Life is less of what happens to us and far more of how we respond. It’s not about what happens to you, but how you choose to respond to it.

Are you a victim or victor?  Or should I say, have you chosen to be a victim or a victor?  No matter how we may have been victimized by someone else’s poor choices or leadership, we can always choose to courageously step out of a victim mentality into a victor mentality.

We can choose courage and reject cowardice. We can choose forgiveness and reject bitterness. We can choose responsibility and reject passivity. We can choose to humble ourselves to learn and grow. We can choose to ask for help and reject isolation.

In order to choose wisely we also need to recognize what we need to reject. We need to reject arrogance, isolation, cowardice, apathy, complacency, bitterness, resentment, hatred, self-pity and the like. However, what we need to primarily reject is the belief we can live and lead alone.

Is it possible to bat 1000 in regard to wise decisions in leadership and life? No. Should we even expect that of ourselves? Absolutely not. As leaders we can often suffer from “analysis paralysis” – unwilling to make a decision because it may be wrong, so we keep ‘analyzing’.  Settle the issue now, you will make some wrong decisions.  However, according to Henry Ford, “Failure is simply an opportunity to begin more intelligently”, so making a wrong decision is not the end of the world if you have the humility to learn from it.

Can we improve our decision making batting average? Definitely, but it is impossible without the humility to learn from our mistakes.  It is imperative to receive input from others. We need the input of others to enable us to grow in wisdom and be the best leaders we can be.  Being part of a community of leaders is critically important to grow as a leader.

We are not going to get it right all the time, but we can choose to humble ourselves to learn from our mistakes – and that’s a wise decision.