Tactical Decision Making Tactical Decision Making The ability to make effective decisions in the face of extreme stress and uncertainty is an essential prerequisite of command. In probably no other human endeavor are the repercussions of command decisions more immediate or obviously momentous than in war.
Battlefield decisions are literally matters of life and death.
The quality that distinguishes great leaders is their ability to make consistently good decisions and to do it quickly, intuitively, almost instinctively. Even under the most trying and uncertain conditions, masters seem to be able to act with confident surety and often without any deliberate thought. While natural abilities certainly contribute, the evidence is clear that masters are made, not born, and that the single most important element in making a master is practice. As with all human skills, decision making is a skill, which improves with constant, purposeful practice. The way to master command decision making is to learn from making countless command decisions.