BLC: Why Business Leaders make poor decisions - Jaseem Ahmed, AP Middlesex University London

Business Leaders Conference was held at Movenpick Hotel on 16 August 2017. The Conference was attended by many successful Business Leaders. Mr. Jaseem Ahmed, Associate Professor at Middlesex University, London was warmly welcomed.

He addressed the audience on the topic why business leaders make poor decisions, He said that,

“One should be mentally prepare for what is coming in your way.”

Through his presentation he explained The Bow-tie analysis which is designed to help planners analyze risks and consequences of these risks as well as prevention and mitigation factors of different planning decisions in a structured way.

He advised to follow the five step process which includes Explore, review, engage, measure and research to make good decisions. Being a leader, making decision is a complex variable and it lies at the heart of our personal and professional lives.

Decisions, which can lead to either acts of genius or some pretty impressive mistakes, are judgments formed in our brain. Decisions are the product of choices, and choices make or break a leader. Every leader makes mistakes, but how you handle the aftermath of a mistake is critical. Great leaders ensure that poor choices don’t compound their mistakes. They also make sure they learn from their mistakes and develop actions to handle the situation differently in the future.


Questioning what is your business model he suggested that one need to be engaged with employees, customers & suppliers. There will be a lot of warning signs and a lot of ways to think about whether a model or strategy made has, at least, a reasonable probability of being successful or not.

Engaging the audience  and explaining how making decisions we depend primarily on two hardwired processes for decision making. Our brains assess what’s going on using pattern recognition, and we react to that information or ignore it because of emotional tags that are stored in our memories. Both of these processes are normally reliable; they are part of our evolutionary advantage. But in certain circumstances, both can let us down.

Leader’s ability to manage his emotions is important, especially since emotions can compromise, or even sabotage, his  ability to make effective decisions. Emotions play such a big part in decision-making.

The implications of the ideas we discuss go far beyond emotional intelligence, or the ability of individuals to empathize with others. Emotions can actually make us believe that we are right when in fact we are really wrong.

 In a world dominated by credit crises brought on, in part, by leaders who were unable to see the fundamental flaws in their thinking, it seems essential that we understand how a leader’s emotions affect decisions.

He ended the note by giving a message to everyone and that is to emphasize how to measure & research things that are easily available and for that he advised that all we need is to think about these five steps as well as explore ourselves.