Decisions That Leave a Mark
By Sophie Makonnen
We make decisions every day. Some are automatic: which route to take, whether to respond to that email now or later. Others involve trade-offs. Choosing between two meetings that overlap, deciding how to allocate a budget, or figuring out who on the team can absorb one more responsibility.
When you are in a leadership role, decision-making comes up often. Some small, some not so small and some big. The context in which those decisions happen, the pressure, the incomplete information, the competing expectations, is something I explored in When Leadership Fails to Protect What Matters. And sometimes, even after a decision is made, new information arrives, and you realise you need to reconsider. I wrote about that in Permission to Change Your Mind. Then there is the pressure to move fast, because in many of our environments, speed reads as competence, as I explored in Fire and Stillness in Leadership.
But what about after? Once the decision is made, the path is set and there is no going back. What happens in that space is what this blog is about.
Post Mortem : Look at the process
Once a decision is made, dwelling on what could have been different does not help. The conditions that shaped it, the information you had, and the constraints you were working with are part of what was. What remains is what actually happened and what you can learn from it.
That is where a post-mortem becomes useful. Not as an exercise in blame or regret, but as a deliberate pause to look at the decision clearly. What did you anticipate correctly? What did you miss? What would you do differently with the same information, and what would you do differently now? These are not always comfortable questions, but they are productive ones.
The goal is not to relitigate the decision. It is to take what it taught you and carry it forward.
People do not forget : repair trust
Difficult decisions can leave marks. They may not always be visible, but they are there. A colleague who felt sidelined in the process, a team member who disagreed and stayed quiet or someone who expected to be consulted and was not. The decision moves forward, but the friction it created does not disappear.
People do not forget. What gets brushed aside as water under the bridge by the person who made the decision can still be very present for those who lived its impact. Moving on as if it has been resolved is where resentment can quietly take root. Over time, that resentment shapes how people collaborate, how much they share, and how much they invest in their work.
Going back to those moments is not about reopening the decision. It is about being intentional and honest in acknowledging that it was difficult, that it affected people differently, and that those differences matter. Creating space for that conversation and approaching it with humility and sincerity signals that what people experienced is worth hearing. It will not undo what happened, but it changes what comes next. A genuine recognition of what someone experienced is not a sign of weakness, it is what keeps working relationships functional.
The same awareness applies to the team as a whole. Friction between individuals spreads. If left unaddressed, it changes how people communicate, how much they trust each other, and how well they work together. A leader who stays close to those dynamics, who notices the shift and names it, gives the team a chance to move through it.
Well Built, Wrong Direction
Take the example of a team that has spent months developing a new internal process for project approvals, meant to streamline how work is reviewed and approved across departments. A lot of effort went into it. People gave up time, pushed through competing priorities, and believed in what they were building.
As the person responsible, you start getting signals that something is off. You go back to the people the process was designed for and ask them directly. What comes back is uncomfortable. The way the process was conceived does not reflect how work moves in the organisation. It would have created more friction, not less. The assumptions it was built on were wrong from the start.
You decide to stop and redirect the project. For the team, this is difficult, as their work will not be used. Some team members who raised concerns early may now feel vindicated. This mix of exhaustion and vindication does not resolve itself. It is important to acknowledge the team's effort, clearly communicate the outcomes of the consultation, and allow space for frustration to be expressed. Addressing these dynamics intentionally and taking responsibility for your decision can help reduce friction. before moving to the next decision.
Important decisions continue to shape what comes next, long after the moment. They become part of our story. What if leaders approached the aftermath with greater calm and clarity?
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