The best way to make good decisions as a leader is to know a sufficient amount of facts, details and information surrounding the decisions you choose to make.
Making good decisions based on anything else is often left entirely to chance. It will either be a hit, or a miss, but one thing is for sure. You will not be in full control of the outcome. You will be at risk of wasting valuable time and energy implementing a strategy that is destined to fail or you may try to solve a problem that does not even exist.
For example, if you are assuming that a specific competitor is winning over a large number of your clients, you can do one of two things.
1) Quickly decide to allocate time, money and resources to fixing the problem.
2) First confirm the problem by arming yourself with facts, data and numbers.
As I discuss in more detail in this article, the latter decision will always be the more strategic and safe way to move forward. Beware of your decision-making blindspots!