MANAGERIAL COGNITIVE CAPABILITY, EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, COGNITIVE BIAS AWARENESS, ANALYTICAL REASONING COMPETENCE, AND EXPERIENCE DEPTH AS PREDICTORS OF STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING EFFECTIVENESS IN THE GHANA EDUCATION SERVICE

Strategic decision-making in the Ghana Education Service requires more than formal authority. It depends on how leaders interpret evidence, regulate emotion, recognise bias, reason analytically, and draw on experience in complex school and administrative settings. This article presents a structured conceptual review of recent peer-reviewed and policy literature published between 2021 and 2026 to examine how managerial cognitive capability, emotional intelligence, cognitive bias awareness, analytical reasoning competence, and experience depth shape strategic decision-making effectiveness in the Ghana Education Service. The review shows that stronger decisions emerge when leaders combine evidence processing with emotional regulation, reflective judgement, and context -sensitive reasoning. It also shows that leadersh ip quality weakens when cognitive overload, unexamined bias, weak data use, and routine-based experience replace disciplined judgement. The article argues that these five capabilities are complementary rather than interchangeable and proposes a Ghana Education Service capability model that links them to decision quality, implementation credibility, and institutional trust. The paper concludes that promotion systems, leadership preparation, and continuing professional development in the Ghana Education Service should move beyond procedural compliance and deliberately cultivate decision capability.