Judgment

One of the ways by which your boss measures you, whether he’s told you or not, is how you exercise good judgment. This holds true regardless of your position within your organization. Your ability to make sound decisions based on available information, and more importantly your choice to act on the best decision, says a lot about you. Demonstrating that you can figure out a solid plan speaks well of your intellect; carrying through with it can reveal much about your character as well.

The best way to develop a good sense of judgment, in my humble opinion, is through experience. It’s easy to make plans and test them on paper, but until you find yourself in a real world scenario you can’t know 100% how everything is going to work out or even how you yourself are going to react to everything happening around you. There’s nothing wrong with being intelligent or possessing natural talent for whatever it is you’re doing, and a dose of common sense doesn’t hurt either. But there’s a reason why people respect the opinions of tested veterans, whether in the boardroom or the war room.

Good judgment is something that is not developed overnight; wisdom and understanding come from having “been there and done that.” You also need to make mistakes, and your supervisor needs to let you make them. Hopefully you can avoid negligent mistakes that get people hurt or cost a lot of money, but you and your boss both should not expect you to be perfect every time.

Your judgment is something that you can improve and hone like any habit. Start by simply thinking things through! Be aware of how others will perceive your words and actions. Don’t shy away from risk, but try really hard to figure out the potential safety, financial, or social consequences of your actions before you move on them.

I don’t know the safety and financial risks associated with your particular work environment, but I have some suggestions for mitigating social risks. When all else fails, remember these: Don’t do something in public you wouldn’t want your parents to see, don’t send a text message you wouldn’t let your significant other read; don’t say anything at work you wouldn’t say in front of your boss; in short, don’t manufacture drama in the workplace. From the stories I’ve heard, these should keep you out of most trouble!

I’ll leave you with an example of a time I personally exercised poor judgment -- and it ended up costing me my job. In the late winter of 2001, I was employed in retail and worked a night shift. Back then I was living in the mountains near Lake Tahoe and thought I would kill some time before work by going four-wheeling in the snow. With proper planning (and preferably the buddy system), you can avoid most catastrophes, but you can’t predict everything. Someone had knocked over a signpost and it was buried in the snow. When I ran over the ripped-off tip of the signpost in my Jeep, it shredded my tire.

Stupidly, I did not have the proper tools to change my tire with me. I managed to make it back to a payphone, since back then cell service was spotty in the mountains. It was several hours before I could call for help, get my tire removed and my spare put on, and get back to town. I’d missed the start of my shift by several hours, and being a no-show was a big no-no! The next day, my boss made it very clear that not showing up for work was unacceptable. One could argue that what happened wasn’t necessarily my fault, but if I’d used better judgment at any point in the situation, I could probably have avoided losing my job.

I should have realized that four-wheeling in the snow wasn’t a great idea just a few hours before work; I should have had the proper tools to remove my tire; perhaps I even should have left my Jeep overnight and gotten a ride to work from someone else so that I wouldn’t miss my shift. If I’d thought things through before taking action, I wouldn’t have had to learn that bitter lesson the hard way. On the plus side, no one was hurt, and I like to believe that I’m a little wiser for the experience and think things through more carefully now. Most of the time.

What tips do you have for developing a better sense of judgment? Ever learned a lesson the hard way and feel like sharing your new wisdom? Please feel free to contribute to the discussion in the comments section! If you’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes reading “The Boss Perspective,” subscribe and share this site with your friends, Like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @BossPerspective.