Abstract
The mining company under study is highly unionised and struggles with individual and collective leadership decision-making. As a result, the organisation faces lack of co-operation from the trade unions, which seems to negatively affect leaders’ effective decision-making. Several leadership development initiatives and training interventions have been implemented to improve leaders’ decision-making, but these have not resulted in much improvement. The purpose of this study was to explore whether the Strategic Choice Model could be used to improve leaders’ individual and collective decision-making, taking into consideration the influence of trade unions. A qualitative case study research design with a constructivist research philosophy was followed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data from 12 business leaders, who were sampled purposively. Thematic analysis was used deductively to identify, compare, organise, and describe themes under the components of the Strategic Choice Model. The study established that the Strategic Choice Model can serve as a useful decision-making approach for leaders at the organisation under study to engage and consult the trade unions on matters of mutual interest. The findings also suggests that the model can be used to empower leaders in making effective decisions with confidence through analysis of factors affecting the decision-making process, application of judgement independently, bargaining with key stakeholders, and inspiration based on clear terms of engagement.
Keywords:
Analysis, bargaining, decision-making, inspiration, judgement, leaders, union influence, Strategic Choice Model