Decision Leadership: Empowering Others to Make Better Choices

by Don A. Moore, Max H. Bazerman

A fresh, research-driven playbook for how successful leaders can maximize the potential of others

When we think of leaders, we often imagine lone, inspirational figures lauded for their behaviors, attributes, and personal decisions—a perception that is reinforced by many leadership books. However, this approach ignores the expectations of modern work cultures centered on equity and inclusion, where a leader’s true mission is to empower others. Applying decades of behavioral science research, Don A. Moore and Max H. Bazerman offer a passionate corrective to this view, casting today’s organizations as decision factories in which effective leaders are decision architects, enabling those around them to make wise, ethical choices consistent with their own interests and the organization’s highest values. As a result, a leader’s impact grows because it ripples out instead of relying on one individual to play the part of heroic figure.
 
Filled with real-life stories and examples of the structures, incentives, and systems that successful leaders have used, this playbook equips each of us to facilitate wise decisions.

Genres: Leadership, Nonfiction, Business

264 pages, Hardcover

Published April 19, 2022

Reviews

[Nat · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were lots of good tidbits in this book, but it felt like they really rode on other author’s coattails by basically summarizing other books for a big part of their content. I also was a bit confused by the meandering obsession with Trump throughout the book. It wasn’t just examples, which could have appropriately added to the book, it was kind of angry rants. When they got to the part where they claimed Trump said to inject bleach to fight Covid, I had to question whether they did any real research in the book if they can’t do their due diligence on something as simple as that.

[Dolly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Max Bazerman and Don Moore helped birth behavioral economics. This phenomenal book is a fresh perspective through that lens on leadership. A wonderful book for general audiences, leaders, MBA students, and students in all disciplines.

[Travis Bow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sort of a miniature, practical variant of Thinking, Fast and Slow with some great insight on leadership and decision making. The ethics chapter had a pretty left-leaning utilitarian bent (it's not ethical to help out your friends, because you might be helping out people like you and contributing to privilege in the world; also you should allocate scarce resources to the young rather than the old so you can maximize life-years), and Chapter 9 (a brief summary of Nudge) favored the paternalism of Nudging pretty heavily and pooh-poohed individual freedom and people's right to judge what is best for themselves, but the rest was thought provoking and enlightening. I'll probably relisten at some point.

[Guy Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the book to focus a lot more on the decision than the leadership parts. I came into the book familiar with most of the concepts, and was looking for to focus on empowering others to make better decisions. I did find the last chapter useful on pulling some of the ideas together in a ‘choice architecture’, and there is value in the book. I found it lacking in the team aspects, and how to design organizations conceptually to ‘empower better decisions’ which is what I had expected.

[Sebastian Gebski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Serious disappointment. It mostly re-iterates the content of other books & very fundamental concepts (e.g., expected value), but in a very shallow and uninspired way (e.g., when discussing expected value, the author barely scratches the theory and completely ignore the real-life challenges with applying it). The most frequently quoted books: "Thinking fast & slow", "Thinking in Bets", "Nudge". But don't expect in-depth analysis, just a direct referral to key concepts/conclusions.

The examples brought to illustrate the ideas aren't just poor matches (surprisingly poorly correspond to the ideas covered) but also have one common denominator - DEI & social justice. So you can find here the usual suspects: Kapernick, George Floyd, etc. I guess they are aimed to inspire? and because wokeness was selling books few years ago ... Don't get me wrong - I'm generally apolitical and I believe the free thought matters: one can learn from experiences/events from all sides of political scene. But in this case, this really looked more like a liberal crowd-pleaser, than applying an adequate situation to illustrate a concept it exemplifies.

Long-story short, this book is a waste (of time/money). Reach out to the roots (books it refers to) - these are far better, far more thought-provoking. I literally made zero notes from "Decision Leadership" and that doesn't happen frequently in my case.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly this was a little bit of a lot and not clearly enough explained to be all that useful. This is the common approach of shotgun teaching, where it hits the highlights from the past 10-20 years of business and psychology in hopes it inspired and updates management. Maybe it helps, but it really didn't seem all that useful as it was presented. You'd have to really dig into each chapter separately and exclusively to use the principles.

[Jessica Freeman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Frustrated and not encouraged

I would have stopped reading if it wasn't a required textbook for post graduate degree. Bringing in politics felt like secondhand embarrassment and like the authors opportunity to project political beliefs. The last chapter of summarizing each chapter and leadership was all that was needed.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and researched look at how leaders influence decisions. Additionally it highlights what empowered followers are capable of and how they benefit organizations. Well worth the time investment to read.

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book explains how decision leadership helps us in making differences. The ten chapters by Don A moore and Max H Bazerman explains how we can make a difference in serving as a leader as well as influencing our ethical dilemmas of being a leader.

[Theodore Kinni · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review here: https://www.strategy-business.com/art...

[Yama Chen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is essentially notes of “Thinking Fast and Slow" for initial leaders.

[Fotini Iconomopoulos · Rating 5 out of 5]

All leaders and wannabe leaders should read this book. Great insights on how to engage others in decisions.

[Peter Zhang · Rating 2 out of 5]

just a fine book. sorry don! (i worked with him)