Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls

“With good judgment, little else matters. Without it, nothing else matters.”

Whether we’re talking about United States presidents, CEOs, Major League coaches, or wartime generals, leaders are remembered for their best and worst judgment calls. In the face of ambiguity, uncertainty, and conflicting demands, the quality of a leader’s judgment determines the fate of the entire organization. That’s why judgment is the essence of leadership.

Yet despite its importance, judgment has always been a fairly murky concept. The leadership literature has been conspicuously quiet on what, exactly, defines it. Does judgment differ from common sense or gut instinct? Is it a product of luck? Of smarts? Or is there a process for making consistently good calls?

Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis have each spent decades studying and teaching leadership and advising top CEOs such as Jack Welch and Howard Schultz. Now, in their first collaboration, they offer a powerful framework for making tough calls when the stakes are high and the right path is far from obvious. They show how to recognize the critical moment before a judgment call, when swift and decisive action is essential, and also how to execute a decision after the call.

Tichy and Bennis bring their three-dimensional model to life with interviews with world-class leaders who have thrived or suffered because of their judgment calls. These stories include:

• Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, whose judgment to grow through research and development transformed GE into the world’s premier technology growth company.
• Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, who made tough calls about teachers, students, and parents while turning around a troubled school system.
• Jim McNerney, CEO of Boeing, whose strategic judgment helped him reinvigorate his company and restore a culture of trust and respect.
• The late general Wayne Downing, who found an unexpected opportunity in the midst of crisis when he led the Special Operations raid to capture Manuel Noriega.
• A. G. Lafley, CEO of Procter & Gamble, who bet $57 billion to purchase Gillette and reinvent his company.
• Brad Anderson, CEO of Best Buy, who made the call to commit totally to a customer-centric strategy and led his people to execute it.

No organization can afford to neglect this crucial discipline—and no previous book has ever brought it into such clear focus.

In the face of ambiguity, uncertainty, and conflicting demands, a leader's judgment determines the fate of an entire organization. Now Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis-both experts in leadership and advisors to the top CEOs-offer a powerful guide to making tough calls when the stakes are high and the right path is far from obvious. No organization can afford to neglect this crucial discipline-and no previous book has ever brought it into such clear focus.

This "engaging and thorough" (Publishers Weekly) study comes to life through interviews with world-class leaders who have thrived or suffered because of their judgment calls, such as New York City Department of Education chancellor Joel Klein, former Procter & Gamble CEO A. G. Lafley, former Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson, and the late general Wayne Downing.

Michael Adams - Library Journal

As with Big Fishand The Watermelon King, Wallace offers here a Southern novel full of whimsy and folklore. Clearly influenced by Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty, Wallace tells the story of Henry Walker, a magician with Jeremiah Musgrove's Chinese Circus in the 1950s South. As a boy in Albany, NY, Henry learned magic from the pasty-faced Mr. Sebastian, believing his mentor to be the devil, and lost his beloved sister as a result. Through his travels, Henry constantly loses those he cares about. As Wallace slowly reveals that the supernatural has less to do with Henry's fate than he thinks, the story grows more powerful. This captivating morality tale is told from multiple points of view well narrated by Norman Dietz, L.J. Ganser, Katherine Kellgren, T. Ryder Smith, Tom Stechschulte, and, especially, Alyssa Bresnahan, whose character's unrequited love for Henry is particularly poignant. Highly recommended for all collections.

Noel M. Tichy is the author of Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will, The Leadership Engine, The Cycle of Leadership, and many other business bestsellers. He is a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Warren G. Bennis is the author of On Becoming a Leader, Reinventing Leadership and many other business bestsellers. He is a university professor and a distinguished professor of business administration at the University of Southern California.