Over the coming weeks on evertonfc.com, we are serialising Carlo Ancelotti's acclaimed 2016 book Quiet Leadership: Winning hearts, minds and matches. In this excerpt, Ancelotti discusses several important elements of decision-making in management and how his approach has developed during 25 years as a boss...

Making decisions is an inevitable part of being a leader in any industry.

In order to make progress every day, decisions need to be made about the training, the players, who is in the team, the opposition.

Within a game, decisions have to be made quickly and confidently.

Shall I make a substitution? Do I need to make a tactical tweak? If they’re not made fast, it can be too late. Time is always moving on during a match and there is no room for indecision – it can kill you.

I am convinced that ‘getting things done’ in a job is integrally linked to the speed and focus with which decisions are made.

The clearest example of decision-making in my industry can be seen on the pitch.

I am always impressed by the manner in which the top players are differentiated from the rest primarily by their decision-making and its effect upon the team.

Take the true greats – the likes of Maradona, Pelé, Cruyff. If you were to watch a film of them playing and pause it just before they made their pass or shot and then thought what is the best thing here, and then ran it on, you would find that 99% of the time they would take the best option. What works when we have the ball and what works when the opposition has the ball. Deciding on one without the other will not succeed over time. Maybe it will work in one game, but not in the long run.

This is the difference between league football and cup football, and it is why the challenge for the coach is always to win the league.

Of course, for the owner it might be to win the Champions League, as it was at Real Madrid for me, and so the coach has to think in a different way to achieve this goal.

This is why winning a treble – domestic cup, league and Champions League – is so difficult. Even when it has been done, I still can’t believe that it is possible.

So, strategic decisions should be long term. When you spend a long time at a club, such as I did at Milan, with the security that brings, you are more able to be involved in implementing strategic decisions, while at the likes of Real Madrid decisions must by necessity become short-term and tactical.

Tactically, you have to use the team at your disposal so that all the component parts, the players and the staff, are able to be efficient in the way I have described as good football.

The tactical decisions become part of the longer-term strategy in this way. My job is to create a system of play using the characteristics of the players and to make the players as comfortable as possible with that system.

I believe that, in general terms, the best system is 4-4-2 because it creates the most balanced team, certainly defensively. It mirrors the shape of the pitch, a rectangle.

But, as I’ve said, the players are the most important. If it is better for Ronaldo not to play as a second forward, OK, let’s try 4-3-3. At the end at Real Madrid, we were able to switch, during the game, from 4-4-2 defensively to 4-3-3 offensively.

Click here to purchase Quiet Leadership: Winning hearts, minds and football matches

Operational decisions are the day-to-day choices I must make. For me, the most important of these involve the players, because it is only with the players that you are able to build the system.

If I have to explain to a player why I decided to leave him out of the team, then I must handle this properly.

If I decide to reduce the training workload after a testing series of fixtures, then I must do this also.

There comes a point with decision-making, particularly in those you make day-to-day, when you need to know where you can adopt a little bit of flexibility and where you have to be strict. You have to decide where, for you personally, it is OK to be flexible.

If I decide to have training at midday and the players come to me and say, ‘Why don’t we train at 11? It’s better for us then, because we have time to go home and have lunch with our family,’ what difference does it make to me?

However, once we have agreed on a time, then I have to be strict. It’s easier when the players make the decisions, the rules, to hold them to these rules.

Former England rugby coach Clive Woodward says the same. Get the players to agree to the rules at the outset, but then it is my job to hold them to their own rules. The negotiation and flexibility come in the decision-making, but the strictness is applied once the decision has been made.

One thing that I work on constantly and where I think I have improved with greater experience is my tendency at times to be too patient.

Sometimes I can take a little too long to make the decision. I like to think coolly about such things, take in all the angles, but I can certainly overthink the situation.

Sometimes I should use less rationality and more instinct. But then again, sometimes it pays to be patient. It is all about getting the right balance.

Early in my managerial career I made myself crazy trying to choose between two centre forwards for a big game. I was awake all night, thinking it through, tossing and turning, and still couldn’t decide.

In the morning, the first person I saw at the club was the doctor, and he told me that one of the two centre forwards was sick and couldn’t play. I didn’t have to make the decision – it was out of my hands.

I have, of course, got better at making these decisions with experience and, despite my sleepless night, learned a valuable lesson that day: I try not to announce who will play and who will be on the bench too early, because if you tell one player he’s playing and the other he’s not, and then something happens to the player you’ve picked, you have to go back to the first one.

He might not have prepared as fully as he should because he thinks he will not play. It’s always a balance.

Getting decisions right or wrong seems an easy thing to quantify, but I don’t believe it to be so.

When the results of my decision prove not to be good, does that mean it was the wrong decision? No. It only means that it turned out to be wrong.

When I make a decision I always think that it’s the right decision at the time, otherwise why would I take it? I have no regret because, with the information at my disposal, I did what I thought was best. I can’t change it.

While it is important to look back and analyse where things have gone wrong, it is vital not to dwell unnecessarily on them. This will kill you.

When we were preparing for the Champions League final in 2007 against Liverpool I had to decide between Alberto Gilardino and Filippo Inzaghi for the striker’s position.

The players and the club made it clear they thought Gilardino was the one, but in 10 games of Champions League football he had only scored two goals.

Inzaghi, however, had an excellent record in European competition. He had scored many Champions League goals. So, I took a decision to put Inzaghi in the team and he scored two goals in the final.

To me, this was the right decision, even if he hadn’t scored, because it was my decision. I am the one who must live with the decision, so I want it to be mine.

If I had any regrets, it would be if it wasn’t my decision. After all, I get paid to make these kind of decisions, and sacked if I get them wrong.

If you asked me how I came to this decision, even after considering it all rationally, I would have to say that in the end I trusted my instinct, despite what everyone around me was saying.

Sometimes you make a decision and there’s not always a logical reason for it. It’s just a gut feeling. It’s not always easy to explain to the players either.

If I have to choose between Ronaldo and a player fresh from the academy to play on the left for Real Madrid, the decision is easy, and it’s also easy to explain to the player from the academy why he does not play.

However, if I have to choose between James Rodríguez and Ángel Di María, it is not so easy. I cannot say one player is better than the other, and even if I thought this, I cannot say this to them.

It will likely come down to instinct. If it’s just my feeling on the day, then I have to do my best to explain that it’s what is best for the team. The player left out won’t be happy, of course, but he will accept it. Players are never happy if they’re not playing.

I see myself as a pragmatist when it comes to making decisions. I have to accept that I must be willing to accommodate the strategies, policies and even the whims of the owners.

I hope that I have been able to do this and remain true to my own ideals. Managing the conflicting ideas and egos of talented players and owners is one of the core attributes of a leader.

It is my guiding notion that it is simply rational to concentrate only on those things you can affect. Those that are out of your control must be rejected for consideration.

Naturally, I have my own views on the strategic, tactical and operational decisions at the team level, and I must also acknowledge that I will rarely be involved in the strategic decisions concerning the organisation.

All such team decisions are, for me, intimately related to maintaining the relationships with the players, which is central to quiet leadership.

Click here to purchase Quiet Leadership: Winning hearts, minds and football matches