Leaders make decisions and enable others to make them. Easier said than done.

‘The essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer – often indeed, to the decider himself … There will always be the dark and tangled stretches in the decision-making process – mysterious even to those who may be most intimately involved,’ said John F Kennedy.

There is an air of mystery which lies at the heart of decisions and decision making. An entire academic discipline, decision science, is devoted to understanding management decision making. Much of it is built on the foundations set down by early business thinkers . . .