I’ve been sharing a lot of different thoughts and tips on critical thinking, and right now I want to focus on why this is such an essential skill for anyone in a leadership position. If you’ve been thinking of trying to move up the corporate ladder yourself, you should focus on critical thinking. Here’s why…
When you first start out in your business life, things are relatively straightforward. You know what the expectations are and after the initial learning period, you have a pretty good idea of how to do your job and how to make the right decisions on a day to day basis. As you start to move up into more of a leadership position, things aren’t always that easy.
You have to think through projects, processes, and problems and come up with the best answers or a plan for moving forward.
That is why, as you start to move up the corporate ladder, being able to think critically about your work and that of your team becomes more and more important. You have to consider things for yourself and find solutions to problems you didn’t even know existed. Critical thinking will help you do that.
And it doesn’t stop there. There’s another very good reason why critical thinking is crucial for leaders.
When you are in a position of leadership, the decisions you make no longer affect just yourself. Instead, they have a direct impact on everyone on the team that you are leading. The higher up you move and the more people you are in charge of, the bigger the impact each of your choices and decisions has. The decisions of the CEO of the company affect a lot more people than those of a project manager for example. That’s yet another reason why your critical thinking skills have to become better and better as you take on more of a leadership role and the number of people under you grows.
Of course, this holds true in any leadership position, not just those in your professional life. Critical thinking makes you a better parent, a better youth group leader, and a better organizer of your local hobby group. Think about what areas in your life this particular skillset will help outside of your day job. Use it as motivation to continue to work on your critical thinking skills.
