How Do You Make Good Decisions When There Isn't Enough Time?

One thing I often think about is how much of my RAF career I probably don't talk about enough when I'm working in leadership, management and coaching.

I spent many years controlling fast jet aircraft. At the time, I certainly wasn't thinking about leadership models, emotional intelligence or coaching. I was doing a job where you had to process information quickly, stay organised, communicate clearly and make decisions, often with very little time to think about them.

You couldn't always wait until you had every piece of information. You had to work with what you knew, understand what mattered at that moment and make a decision. Just as importantly, you had to remain in control of yourself while doing it. This was a process that took a lot of time through training.

All these years later, I find myself working with managers and leaders who are dealing with a completely different environment but, interestingly, some very similar human challenges. There are a lot of patterns that are the same.

How do I make the right decision when I don't have all the information? How do I prioritise when everything feels urgent? How do I stop myself reacting emotionally? How do I remain clear when other people are looking to me for an answer?

So over my next series of blogs, I'm going to draw a little more on my military experience and connect some of those lessons with the leadership, management and coaching work I do today.

Because when I look back, I realise I learned an enormous amount about human performance long before I knew that's what I was learning.

In This Article You Will Learn

In this article, we'll explore decision making under pressure, why self-regulation matters in leadership and management, how pressure can affect the way we think and communicate, and how coaching can help managers understand their own reactions before those reactions start affecting other people. For me it is about checking in with yourself to really notice what is going on.

Pressure Changes the Way We Behave

Have you ever noticed how differently people can behave when the pressure goes up? I am sure you will have often.

Someone who is normally calm can suddenly become abrupt. Another person starts trying to control everything. Someone else avoids making a decision altogether because they're frightened of getting it wrong.

I've seen all of these behaviours over the years and, if we're honest, most of us probably recognise these in ourselves.

Pressure doesn't suddenly remove our leadership knowledge. A manager may know perfectly well how they should communicate, listen or involve their team. The problem is being able to access those behaviours when everything around them is becoming difficult.

That distinction is a fascinating area to reflect on.

We spend a lot of time teaching people what good leadership looks like. Perhaps we don't spend enough time helping them understand what happens to their leadership when they're under pressure.

Self-Regulation Isn't About Being Emotionless

When I was controlling aircraft, becoming flustered wasn't going to help anyone. Although of course you did become flustered in the early days and with the major exercises.

The aircraft didn't disappear because I was having a difficult day. Decisions still needed to be made, information still needed processing and communication still had to remain clear, and quickly.

You learned to regulate yourself, you had no choice but to learn this.

Interestingly, we didn't sit there talking about emotional intelligence or self-regulation. It was simply part of being competent at the job.

Years later, when I began studying and working more deeply with coaching and emotional intelligence, I realised I'd been practising elements of self-regulation for years without necessarily giving them that name. Let’s face it the words Emotional Intelligence were not a thing years ago, but you always knew the people had plenty of it, naturally.

And I think there's an important distinction here.

Self-regulation doesn't mean we don't experience emotion, of course we do. It means becoming aware of what's happening internally and making a conscious choice about what we do with it.

That's very different.

A leader can feel frustrated without communicating frustration, they can feel pressure without transferring that pressure onto everybody around them.

They can disagree without becoming defensive and that's self-control, but I think it's also good leadership.

For me, that's where self-awareness and self-regulation become incredibly important. Something many years ago I learnt but did not realise that was what I was learning.

Sometimes You Have to Make a Good Enough Decision

This is something else the military taught me.

There isn't always a perfect decision.

I see managers delaying decisions because they're searching for certainty. They want another spreadsheet, another meeting, another opinion or another piece of information before they'll commit.

Of course, some decisions need careful analysis and should never be rushed. But there are other situations where waiting for perfect information creates its own problem.

When controlling aircraft, you were constantly assessing what you knew at that point in time. Information could change, circumstances could change and you might need to adjust accordingly very quickly.

The skill wasn't predicting everything perfectly. It was making the best decision available with the information you had and remaining alert enough to change it when new information appeared. Learning to be assertive was another skill you learn with in this role, you had to be.

I think managers sometimes underestimate how important that skill is.

Good decision making isn't necessarily about always being right. It's about being able to assess information, understand risk, use judgement and take responsibility for the decision you make.

That's management and leadership.

What Happens to You When the Pressure Goes Up?

This is probably where my coaching background has changed the way I now look at those experiences.

If I were coaching a manager who struggled with decision making under pressure, I wouldn't immediately give them a decision-making model.

I'd be far more interested initially in what happens to them, it is how it affects them.

What do you notice when the pressure starts increasing? Do you speed up? Become quieter? Talk more? Become abrupt? Start taking work back from other people? Avoid the decision? Stop listening? Try to control everything?

Those questions tell us far more.

I've coached enough leaders over the years to know that two people can experience the same pressure and respond completely differently.

That is why self-awareness matters so much, self-awareness is such a big area because some people are unaware, they are not self-aware.

You can't regulate something you haven't noticed.

Coaching creates the opportunity to slow that thinking down and recognise patterns that are incredibly difficult to see while you're actually in the middle of them.

Your Team Experiences Your Pressure Too

This is something I think managers sometimes forget or fully appreciate what messages this may send.

You might believe you're hiding how stressed you are, but your team is experiencing your behaviour. You don’t always know how your team experience you.

They hear the shorter answers. They notice when you stop listening. They see you taking control of things you would normally delegate. They recognise the change in your body language and tone.

You don't have to tell people you're under pressure. They often already know.

And this is where leadership self-regulation becomes bigger than simply managing our own emotions.

Our behaviour affects everybody around us.

A manager who becomes increasingly frantic can unintentionally make the whole team feel frantic. A leader who remains calm, communicates clearly and establishes what needs to happen next can have exactly the opposite effect.

That doesn't mean pretending everything is fine.

It means being intentional about what the team needs from you at that moment.

Clear Communication Becomes More Important, Not Less

Communication when controlling fast jets had to be clear. There wasn't room for unnecessary information or ambiguity when things became busy. Self-Regulation was essential before you pressed the button to talk to the Jets.

Interestingly, I sometimes see the opposite happen in organisations.

Pressure increases and communication gets worse.

People start sending rushed emails, messages become shorter, assumptions increase and conversations that really need to happen face-to-face are dealt with through technology because it feels quicker.

Then we wonder why people misunderstand each other.

One thing I learned very early was that being concise and being abrupt are not the same thing.

You can communicate clearly and directly without creating unnecessary tension.

That's another skill I now find myself exploring regularly with managers and leaders.

What did you intend to communicate, and how did it actually land?

Those two things aren't always the same.

Training Matters Before the Pressure Arrives

Another lesson I've carried with me from the military is that you don't wait for a difficult situation before deciding how you're going to respond to it.

You train and you practise, then you reflect on what happened.

You learn from mistakes and you build competence so that when pressure arrives, you aren't trying to invent everything from scratch.

I think there's a huge lesson here for leadership and management development.

We sometimes send managers on a course, give them some models and assume they'll be able to use everything when the difficult conversation, crisis or high-pressure decision arrives.

But knowing something and being able to apply it under pressure are two completely different things.

That's why I believe leadership development needs practice, reflection and coaching alongside the knowledge.

It's also why I'm such a strong believer in managers developing coaching skills. Coaching encourages reflection. It helps us notice our behaviour and gives us the opportunity to think about what we might do differently next time.

Leadership Starts With Managing Yourself

We often think leadership begins with managing other people, I'm increasingly convinced it starts before that.

My questions is, “Can you manage yourself”?

Can you recognise when your emotions are influencing your judgement? Can you remain curious when you're convinced you're right? Can you listen when you're under pressure? Can you make a decision without allowing fear of getting it wrong to paralyse you?

And when things don't go according to plan, can you regulate your response well enough to think clearly about what needs to happen next?

Those aren't soft skills, they're leadership skills. Those that know me will be aware I dislike the words soft skills.

Perhaps some of the most important ones.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is decision making under pressure?

Decision making under pressure is the ability to assess available information, understand priorities and risk, use judgement and make an appropriate decision when time, uncertainty or consequences create additional pressure.

Why is self-regulation important in leadership?

Self-regulation helps leaders manage their emotional responses so that pressure does not unnecessarily affect their judgement, communication or behaviour towards other people.

How does emotional intelligence help managers?

Emotional intelligence helps managers understand their own emotions and behaviour while also recognising the emotions and needs of others. Self-awareness and self-regulation are particularly valuable when managers are working under pressure.

How can coaching improve leadership decision making?

Coaching helps leaders reflect on how they think and behave, recognise patterns in their decision making and develop greater self-awareness. This can help managers respond more intentionally rather than simply reacting under pressure.

How can managers stay calm under pressure?

Staying calm begins with recognising personal pressure responses, understanding priorities, creating thinking space where possible and developing behaviours that have been practised before high-pressure situations arise. Practise being a keyword here.

What skills do leaders need to make decisions under pressure?

Important skills include self-awareness, self-regulation, communication, situational awareness, prioritisation, judgement, confidence and the ability to adapt when new information becomes available. You have to be able to stay in control of yourself.

One Final Thought...

When I look back at controlling fast jet aircraft, I realise some of the most valuable lessons weren't really about aircraft at all.

They were about people and performance.

They were about staying organised when there was a lot happening, communicating clearly, making decisions without perfect information and learning to manage yourself when the pressure increased. I can tell you the levels of pressure were huge but it was learning how to work with them all at different levels. Flight Safety is huge and this was so well trained so people did not die.

At the time, I didn't call that leadership development or emotional intelligence. It was simply part of doing the job properly.

Years later, through my work in leadership, management and coaching, I've come to understand just how transferable those skills really are.

Perhaps that's why I'm going to draw on my military experience a little more in this next series of blogs.

There are lessons I learned controlling fast jets that I now see managers and leaders dealing with every day.

The environment may be completely different, but the human being under the pressure really isn't.

For more information on our Leadership and Management programmes or Coaching Services, contact Target Training Associates on 0800 302 9344 or visit our website