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Decision-making plays a vital role in business. Yet as a trait, it is often overlooked when identifying, assessing, onboarding and empowering leadership talent. This study, therefore, aims to focus on the dimensions of organisational decision-making and investigate whether it should be an integral factor in the hiring process. The survey also looks at the relationships between decision-making and executive leadership, talent strategy and employee satisfaction. Could good decision-making as a trait be a factor when it comes to retention, improving organisational thinking and thriving leadership?

A quantitative and qualitative survey was commissioned and conducted by FT Longitude, part of the Financial Times Group. This included a questionnaire sent out to 400 senior executives at C-suite, C-1 and C-2 levels. The respondents were from companies with more than 1,000 employees in 13 industries and from five countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. This was also accompanied by in-depth interviews with three experts from both the public and private sector.

Almost two-thirds (63%) of senior executives have resigned or considered resigning due to frustration with organisational decision-making, while 29% have considered quitting because they were frustrated with the way a company makes decisions. More than a third (34%) resigned for this reason. Yet, a quarter of senior executives say that their decision-making experience was not explicitly discussed before starting their job. Senior executives who were asked about decision-making in interviews were 1.4 times more likely to be satisfied with their jobs. The ability to make decisions should therefore play a central role in hiring senior executives.

Decision-making as a trait has been neglected when hiring executives. For the first time, this research shows how significant it is for leadership teams. If senior executives are to improve organisational decision-making, this trait needs codifying in HR processes. This has led Kingsley Gate to embed it in recruitment profiling.