Every decision a leader makes – every target set, the direction taken – is fundamentally a hypothesis. Or more accurately an educated guess about the future. Leaders often think they should “have all the answers” and can be guilty of presenting their opinions as facts.
The alternative is to identify and test your hypothesis before going full steam ahead. Testing your hypothesis is sometimes perceived as slow and indecisive, however, a few moments of reality-checking can prevent so much rework and inefficiency
Hypothesis-based leadership encourages you to test ideas through experimentation and analysis. You learn quickly which options are most promising and which to abandon. This provides a significant edge in a rapidly changing, uncertain environment. It also empowers your team to explore different options to achieve goals, rather than just marching ahead based on your opinion and improves their judgement in the process.
We explored this in more detail on our recent podcast and found some fascinating research on decision making and experimentation
