In a recent poll, 77 percent of Japanese workers said they expected their boss to have the answer to any of their questions, problems, and concerns that come up at work.

That figure implies a work environment driven by facts and figures, with centralized decision making, little power for entry-level positions, and lots of bureaucracy.

Conversely, 13 percent of Americans expected their boss to know it all.

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  Photo provided by: Marco Bellucci http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcobellucci/
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It means we don’t expect our boss to have all the answers. It means the big kahuna isn’t always the most qualified to attack a problem. It means he or she won’t necessarily the best path to follow when there is a fork in the road.

So why do we act like we can’t make decisions?

We second guess things. We wait for approval on things we already know the answer to. We downplay our ability to think critically.

Here are seven reasons why you’re more qualified than your boss to make tough decisions.

  1. You’re closer to the problem. If your customer has a concern, you know him better than your boss does. You intimately know your clients, and interact with them on a regular basis; your boss just hears about them in weekly updates. Do what’s right for your customer–you know them best.

  1. It’s faster. If your boss is anything like most of mine have been in the past, they’re extremely busy. They are making higher-level decisions, and they have enough on their plates. It could take weeks to answer a question you have (that you already know the answer to) if you try and run it by your boss first. We live in a speed economy. You don’t have time to wait. Make the decision, move on.

  2. You have the information. If you’re a designer, you probably read books or have been trained in design. If you’re a marketer, hopefully you’ve read Seth Godin and other marketing books and blogs. Your boss may be trained in the same area, but more likely she may be more focused on leading people. What’s that mean? it means you have all the latest, greatest information stored up inside your noggin or they are at the tips of your fingers online. You have all you need, now pull the trigger on making a decision.

  3. It’s a matter of opinion. There’s not always just one right answer. Your work is not a multiple choice test. Answers to difficult, pressing, tough-to-pinpoint problems are often simply a matter of opinion. Be confident in your answer, back it up with your knowledge, and do what you think is best.

  4. You know how your boss thinks. You’ve gone to her before; you’ve seen how she operates. Try approaching a decision from her point of view along with your own. Decide which is the better option, and make the decision based on multiple points of view.

  5. You’re prepared. You have the entire back story of the problem you’re facing. You know the ins and outs, every little detail that you might forget to fill your boss in on. You’ve got a 360 degree view of the situation, making you 100 percent qualified to have the final say on which direction to go.