3 Reasons Senior Leaders Experience Decision Fatigue and 2 Antidotes
When I was on a leadership team, I both loved and hated making so many decisions. I enjoyed the mental challenge of thinking strategically, solving problems and operating in ambiguous environments. I hated the number and range of decisions I had to make- everything from how might we transform the culture of an organisation to what is our people plan in the event of a massive earthquake to do you want catering for the upcoming team day.
The sheer volume is enough to create decision fatigue, but this is exacerbated by the leadership rhythms and context we operate in.
Reason 1: You are often operating with incomplete context. Things get escalated because you’re frequently choosing between two good things or two bad things in a context where you can’t predict the outcome. No one holds all the information necessary but you hold the responsibility and stakes on the big, ambiguous decisions.
Reason 2: You are weighing things up and navigating this uncertainty all while mode-switching all day, jumping between topics and contexts across a varied range.
Reason 3: All this is happening in days packed with meetings, giving you limited space for any thinking and doing. Your inbox and to-do list continue to grow, all while you’re navigating considerable complexity.
Antidote 1: The simplest antidote is to create space to think. Schedule time deliberately to sit and roll around in different issues, exploring the different angles either alone or with another person. This is an obvious solution but often challenging to implement. It feels like a luxury somehow, an indulgence you can seldom afford. But the truth is this is a prerequisite to making decisions and strategising effectively in ambiguous and uncertain contexts. Bill Gates, as an example, carves out an annual Think Week to lift up from the weeds and look at the whole.
Antidote 2: Decisions seem to flow up by default. There are lots of decisions that come to your desk because of how the hierarchy works in organisations. That’s not always useful or effective. Get really clear on which decisions actually need to sit with you and delegate the rest to your team. There are decisions that require a broader context that often sits with you. Hang on to those. Everything else, empower your team.
Working 10-hour days, filled to the brim with meetings with lots of decisions is pretty normal for leaders at the senior and executive levels. But if we take a second to notice the water we’re swimming in, and make intentional choices around how we make decisions, the quality of our decisions and our experience can change significantly. Decisions don’t all need to flow up, and we don’t have to suffocate our brains trying to resolve them all in days packed to the brim.
