Leaders have the role of making strategic decisions to address challenges facing their organizations; the competitiveness and degree of corporate goals attainment is dependent on the quality, timeliness, and acceptability of managerial decisions (Bridge & Dodds, 2000).
US Army is the largest department of the United States Armed forces; leaders in the institution have to make decisions to address day-to-day operation of the department.
The decision making style adopted at US Army is called authoritative decision making approach; according to the style leaders make decisions that they feel fits a certain situation without much consultations. The main reason why the institution uses the method is its nature of operation where for security reasons information is possessed by few individuals who are highly experienced in military operations.
For example when planning a laid, the information is on the day, the place, and the time may only be with the leaders to prevent leakage, when swigging to action, subordinates will be expected to follow orders and instructions as will be given.
Decision making tools and techniques adopted by US Army
The main tools that are used to make decisions in US Army are insider information and intelligence information; leaders of the military department get some information from among others Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Security information is sensitive thus leaders act on the information through giving orders and instructions to subordinates.
The importance of making situation based decisions
When making decisions, US Army leaders base the decision on the situation; different situations call for different decisions thus the managers have to take every situation as independent. When decision are based on the prevailing condition, chances of quality, timely, and responsive decisions are high; decisions are made to address the situation, thus improving resource utilization.
My preferred decision making style for US Army
Although the decision making style adopted by US Army can be justified by the type of an institution it is, the method can be improved further when facilitative decision making approach is used.
When using facilitative decision making style, leaders are expected to gauge the sensitivity of the information they have and share what is safe with their subordinates; after sharing the information the team can make the final decision. Facilitative decision making style is superior to authoritative decision making since final decision is made by a pool of people who are likely to combine their intellectual capacity and experience to make a hybrid decision.
Influence of stakeholders on decision making model
Stakeholders to an organization affects the decision making model adopted in an organization; management are stewards of stakeholders so they are bound to listen and consider inputs from stakeholders. In the event that stakeholders are not satisfied with decisions they have the right to question the management or offer their suggestions on how a particular decision would have been made.
Managerial decisions are considered to be quality when they have been implemented successfully and addressed the challenge at hand effectively. For a successful implementation, stakeholders to the decision must understand their roles effectively.
To make stakeholders understand the role they have to play within an organization, leaders need to develop procedures, rules, or policies to be followed in the implementation stage. Monitoring and control are crucial for successful implementation; they make managers understand the effectiveness of their decisions, improve them and offers feedback for further decisions (Bateman & Snell, 2011).
For example the US Army stakeholders include the United States government, intelligence gathering organizations, other security bodies, and the public; the above stakeholders are affected directly or indirectly by decisions made by the institution. On the other hand, the stakeholders can influence the institution decisions making style through giving information and feedback to the institution.
References
Bateman, T. S., & Snell, S. A. (2011). Management: Leading & collaborating in a competitive world. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Bridge, J., & Dodds., J. (2000). Managerial decision making. London: Taylor & Francis.