It’s easy to freak out about all the things that can go wrong.

But, as a leader, your role is to push progress forward despite the dangers. It feels like you’re caught in a bind.

But business leaders are accustomed to making decisions in an environment of risk. It’s what we need to do.

You know the basics about looking at risk: probability and impact. Perfectly logical, but unfortunately reality tends to not line up that cleanly.

I’ve done many risk analyses over the course of my career, and it’s very useful in a limited capacity. We have a choice to pick A, B, or C, and a nice probability/impact matrix can really help to make the decision.

But often that can reflect more about what your gut is telling you than a entirely rational analysis. Why? Because you’ll focus more on the risks that your gut is worried about. You’ll adjust the probabilities as well, because rarely do we REALLY know what the probability is.

But this can still be useful, because a well-informed gut can be better than we give it credit for.

The challenge for me is to stay away from emotionally driven decisions. I’ve learned that when I’m reacting emotionally I just need to slow down.

And let my gut help me with its wisdom.