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Management & Leadership vocabulary · Decision Making

Consensus

Meaning in management & leadership, with examples

/kənˈsensəs/nounCommon term

In management & leadership, consensus means: General agreement among all or most members of a group, reached through discussion, so that people can support a decision even if it was not their first choice.

In Turkish: uzlaşı, fikir birliği, konsensüs

How it is used

You reach, build or look for consensus. Consensus-based decision-making is slower but usually wins more support. In meetings people ask 'Do we have consensus?' or admit 'There's no consensus yet.'

Example sentences

  1. After two hours of discussion, we finally reached a consensus on the new pricing.

  2. She's good at building consensus between sales and finance.

Common collocations

  • reach a consensus
  • build consensus
  • broad consensus
  • consensus decision
  • lack of consensus
  • decision-makingThe process of choosing between different options, including collecting information, weighing risks and benefits, and agreeing who makes the final choice.
  • buy-inReal agreement with and support for a plan or decision from the people it affects, so that they actively help to make it work.
  • trade-offA situation where you accept less of one thing to get more of another, such as lower quality for faster delivery; also the balance you choose between the two.
  • alignmentA state in which teams, goals and actions support the same strategy and priorities, so that different parts of an organisation work in the same direction.
  • conflict resolutionThe process of dealing with a disagreement between people or groups in a fair and calm way, so that they can find a solution and keep working together.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Decision Making

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