Contributed by Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, disaster avoidance expert, speaker and author. 

History’s headlines are filled with examples of companies brought to their knees by bad decision making.

Decca Records famously turned down the Beatles. Motorola chose not to make smartphones. Elon Musk tweeted about taking Uber private and plummeted his company into chaos. Boeing’s leadership made some terrible decisions to cover up problems and rush production of the 737 Max. In all cases, their competitors took advantage of these failures to seize market share.

Good decision making is the essence of successful leadership, which is why the term “leader” is often equated to “decision-maker.” Tragically, too many leaders get it wrong. It’s not a matter of luck or timing.

Disasters happen when leaders go with their gut. The process of decision making is anything but intuitive, because our brain is wired to make terrible decisions in the modern professional environment. After all, our mind is adapted for the tribal savanna, not the globalized, digitalized business world of today.