The Leadership Insiders network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential¹ people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today’s answer to the question “How do you make tough business decisions?” is written by Vip Sandhir, founder² and CEO of HighGround.

All company leaders will face major business decisions throughout their time as the heads of their organizations. Difficult decisions related to activities such as M&A, leadership changes, restructuring, and massive growth plans will directly impact the company’s employees.

If you’ve already established trust with your workforce³, you can significantly minimize potential negative impacts and be more assured your employees will buy in to your decisions, even if they don’t necessarily agree with them. But earning their faith takes time. As a leader, you are trusted only to the degree that people believe in your ability, consistency⁴, integrity, and commitment to deliver. The good news is that you can earn confidence over time by relying on a few strategies:

Instill trust through an employee engagement program

By encouraging consistent feedback and establishing an honest environment, employees will trust the direction and information you give them. Create a highly engaged culture by prioritizing real-time recognition, continuous feedback, and ongoing⁵ goal-setting.

• Change and react with meaningful conversations. You’ve likely had to adjust your business plan in the middle of the year. Real-time, continuous communication helps you keep employees in the loop and adjust to expectations as your organization’s needs change.

• Giving timely feedback is the most effective way to communicate expectations. Not only that, but saving your big kudos⁶ until the end of the year isn’t just ineffective—it is makes it more difficult to deliver.

• Ongoing goal-setting can help people understand where their contributions fit within the organization and where they need to aim. Better yet, these can be transparent⁷ across the organization so everyone is held accountable for the outcomes and behaviors that drive your business and cultural success.

Gather and measure sentiment during times of change

Part of the difficulty in making tough business decisions is leaders don’t want to surprise or disappoint employees. Think about the last time you made a major company-wide announcement. Did you know if employees were happy? Were they shocked? Or even worse, did you have no insight into their reactions at all? If you regularly measure employee sentiment through real-time pulse surveys—especially during times of change—you can more accurately⁸ pinpoint⁹ reactions and address issues immediately. The results of these pulse surveys empower your leadership team to be more forthcoming moving forward, earning the trust of employees and strengthening a transparent company culture.

If there is a strong link between employees and managers to the goals of the organization, the vision and values of the company will be embraced by all.

At the end of the day, the mindset shouldn’t be about how you can make tough decisions easier, but how you can make those decisions in a way that won’t negatively impact your employees or your organization’s objectives. Create a collaborative feedback culture, and when the time comes to make difficult decisions, you know that with your team’s insights in mind and trust in the leadership, the decision will be accepted positively¹⁰.

“透视领导力”是一个在线社区，最睿智、最有影响力的商界大佬会在此回答一些有关职业生涯和领导力的问题。今天的问题是：面对艰难处境该怎样决策？答问者是人力资源软件公司HighGround创始人兼首席执行官威普•桑德尔。

每位企业领导都会碰上做重大商业决策的时候，包括并购、管理层人事更迭、企业重组，以及与员工密切相关的大规模业绩增长计划等。

如果你在员工中建立了信任，就可以大为减少潜在的负面影响，还有信心认为即使员工不认同，至少也会接受。但赢得员工的信任需要时间。身为领导者，只有充分展示出能力、言行一致、诚信待人、信守承诺，才能获得信任。好消息是有一些策略可以用：

通过培养员工敬业态度建立信任

鼓励员工不断反馈，营造坦诚的氛围，员工会相信前进的方向没错，得到的指令也没问题。把重点放在即时认可员工的成绩、持续反馈，不断给员工设定目标，就能营造高度敬业的企业文化。

• 企业出现变化后，跟员工沟通时要真诚。有时根据业绩情况年中会做业务微调，此时跟员工保持沟通就会有助于维护稳定，也能推动员工根据企业情况调整预期。

• 调整预期方面，及时反馈是最有效的沟通方式。此外，平时多交流就不必等到年底再统一反馈，不仅收效甚微，还增加了沟通的难度。

持续设定目标可以帮助员工找到自己最适合担任的岗位，明确奋斗方向。更好的做法是让公司上下权责透明公开，每个人都努力追求优秀业绩，爱岗敬业，推动业务发展并成功打造企业文化。

出现变化后要注意员工情绪变化，估计可能造成的影响。

领导做重要决策时还有个难处在于，不希望让员工意外或失望。回忆一下你最近一次向整个公司宣布重大决定时的情景。当时你知道员工是什么反应吗？是开心还是震惊？或者更糟糕，你根本不了解员工有什么反应？及时做做满意度调查、把握员工的态度，尤其是在变动期间，从而更精准地预判员工的反应，出现问题立即解决。满意度调查的结果可以帮助管理层对未来的行动更有前瞻性，赢得信任，促进企业文化更公开透明。

倘若员工和管理者能为了实现企业的目标而紧密团结，企业的愿景和价值观就会被广泛接受。

归根结底，企业领导不应想着把困难的决策简单化，应该考虑如何做决策才不会打击员工士气，也不会影响企业的宗旨。只要建立了协同反馈的企业文化，领导者今后在做艰难决策时，会很清楚员工的想法，又拥有员工的充分信任，公司上下积极接受决策便会顺理成章。