Contents

• Introduction
• Organizational Decision Making
• Behavioral Influence in Decision Making
• Rational Vs Intuitive Decision Making
• Biases in Decision Making
• Self Awareness
• Conclusion
• References

Description

This essay provides answer to the following question –
In what ways does self awareness contribute to effective decision making, and the effective use of power and influence?
Decision making is an important organizational process that involves careful analysis of the situation and clarity of organizational objective. Almost all the organizational activities require decision making at all the levels. Although, it is required that decision makers follow a rational and facts based scientific approach while making their decisions, many managers use shortcuts such as gut feeling arising out of their distilled experience or size up a person based on the their personality and individual perception (Robbins & Judge, 2008). Personal biases, cognitive biases, perceptions, professional and personal backgrounds too play an important role in decision making. Irrespective of the method used, it becomes important from the organizational perspective that the decision maker is unbiased and does not bring forth his or her personal preferences to influence the decision. Self awareness plays an important role in decision making. Greater the self awareness greater are the chances of neutral, unbiased and effective decisions. Effective decision is also about having greater awareness of the situation, resources, impact of the decision etc. The paper analyzes decision making and the effect of self awareness on decision making. The paper also discusses possible biases, use of power, the role of prejudice in decision making. Most importantly the paper discusses intuitive decision making.