Chapter 9: Maximizing the Power of Decision Making: Ten Useful Concepts for School Leaders

The importance of decision making to individual and organizational well-being has long been established in such fields as economics, psychology, and neuroscience. Educators, however, have not yet capitalized on this research, often leaving schools and institutions perpetually trapped in a cycle of poor, hasty, or uninformed decision making. The concepts elaborated in this chapter are drawn from extant research on decision making and specifically the interactions of Systems 1 and 2 (automatic and reflective cognitive systems) in decision making and were chosen for their particular applicability to schools and school leaders. The authors posit that these principles, if applied, will not only result in more conscientious and reflective decision making among school leaders, but also contribute to more effective organizations and efficacious educators.