The Leadership Line
Leading people, growing organizations, and optimizing opportunities is not for the faint of heart. It takes courage, drive, discipline and maybe just a dash of good fortune. Tammy and Scott, mavericks, business owners, life-long learners, collaborators and sometimes competitors join forces to explore the world of work. They tackle real-life work issues – everything from jerks at work to organizational burnout. And while they may not always agree – Tammy and Scott’s experience, perspective and practical advice helps viewers turn the kaleidoscope, examine options and alternatives, and identify actionable solutions.
The Leadership Line
The Hidden Cost of Leading: Understanding and Overcoming Decision Fatigue
Ever found yourself so mentally drained at the end of a workday that you can't even decide what to eat for dinner? That's decision fatigue in action – a leadership challenge that silently erodes effectiveness and energy.
During our candid conversation, we dive deep into why so many leaders hit this mental wall and the surprising ways they often create their own exhaustion. When leaders make decisions that should rightfully belong to their team members, they not only overburden themselves but also stunt their team's growth. We unpack how "reverse delegation" happens when staff members push decisions upward, and how leaders unwittingly encourage this by second-guessing or overriding the decisions their people do make.
The solution begins with a simple but powerful exercise: tracking every decision you make for a week. This decision inventory reveals which choices could easily be delegated and which team members might be consistently avoiding decision responsibility. We share practical strategies for setting proper boundaries, truly releasing control (not just pretending to), and distinguishing between decisions that genuinely require your attention versus those that don't.
Leaders often misinterpret servant leadership as making all decisions for their team when true servant leadership means developing others' decision-making muscles. By properly analyzing what's driving your decision fatigue and taking specific actions to address it, you can reclaim your mental energy while simultaneously developing a more capable, confident team.
Ready to break free from the exhaustion of making everyone else's decisions? Listen now to discover how to put decisions back where they belong and focus your leadership energy where it matters most.
Good morning Scott and Tammy Morning Carmen.
Speaker 2:Hello Carmen.
Speaker 3:So weird.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, you never know how Scott's going to greet us.
Speaker 3:What side of the bed he got up in this morning.
Speaker 2:The left side.
Speaker 3:Is that your normal side?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I take whatever side is furthest from the bathroom, according to my wife.
Speaker 3:That's the rule.
Speaker 2:That is the rule. You guys actually switch sides of the bed over your marriage, Like if we're in a hotel or somewhere and the other side is closer to the bedroom. Yeah, we'll switch.
Speaker 3:I've never switched sides. Carmen, have you ever switched sides? No, oh wow, scott, you're more adaptable than most. I thought you had a side. That's the side you sleep on.
Speaker 2:It's just a bed.
Speaker 1:I get that in theory, but if I go like to a hotel by myself, I still sleep on my side of the bed.
Speaker 3:Um, that's every time, yeah, every time. I have a side. What side are you, carmen, as you look at the head of the bed, what side are you? Right, I'm left, so you and I could share a bed if we traveled together to share a room right, it's good to know? Yeah, good to know, scott. Either one of us could share a bed if we traveled together to share a room right, it's good to know? Yeah, good to know, scott, either one of us would share a room with you, just so you know. That's off the table, I don't care.
Speaker 2:If I'm in a hotel by myself, I try out all the beds. One night in, one bed, one night in. I'm sure housekeeping loves me.
Speaker 1:Do you really? I wanted to ask for housekeeping.
Speaker 2:You really should. Yeah, I will sometimes yeah.
Speaker 3:Just make sure I use all the sheets and all the towels, because I'm paying for this place.
Speaker 2:Well, you know we could have the whole conversation about. You know, they only come and clean your room every other day or every third day, which, again, I don't care. I just find it interesting that they've cut their operational costs, but prices haven't gone down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was one of the things I thought was really interesting. That happened in COVID and post-COVID is everywhere I go. Now, you know, and I mean Scott and I are in hotels every week, right, and yeah, that's. I don't get clean sheets every day. I don't get clean towels every day, right. I'm in North Carolina this week, Carolina this week, and I checked in late last night and I'm looking at the bill and I was like that's an extremely expensive hotel One night overnight stay. But it is what it is. Every city has their thing and, yeah, nice hotel big bucks.
Speaker 1:Well, the thing I wanted to talk about today is Hotels. How did you know, I'm trying to like create some like segue between hotels and this topic, and I'm usually the queen of segues and this morning I'm just I'm not getting there.
Speaker 2:You fell off your segue.
Speaker 1:You think I was wearing my helmet. We made it hard on her, Scott.
Speaker 3:Sorry about that. You make it hard on us every week when you throw these questions out there and we have no idea.
Speaker 2:I was going to say she's probably going to pick an extra hard topic this morning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's. I figure it's only fair that we finally made something hard for you. Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, this phrase came up recently when I was at a meeting decision fatigue and I was thinking For f*** sake, I mean, I'd have fatigue, fatigue well, when I first heard that phrase I was like, oh my god, yes, like.
Speaker 1:What a description for when. You know, when I worked in the corporate world and I had 25 people reporting to me and 29 product lines, and you know, like, know, like, I get to the end of the day, I'd be like I can't make one more choice, I can't decide what's for dinner, just listeners. So you know, scott is like playing his little violin of sad music for me, scott, who you know has one.
Speaker 3:He'll never have decision fatigue in his life.
Speaker 1:He loves to make decisions.
Speaker 2:It's just a decision. It's just a bad. It's just a decision.
Speaker 1:I would get to a point where, like, don't make me decide what I'm eating for lunch, like I just I can't make one more decision. So my real question for you guys is, like, how do you see this playing out in leaders that you work with, and how do you help a leader, like get their mojo back, because decision making is pretty damn important?
Speaker 3:One of the most important things in terms of a leader's responsibility, right, is to be able to make certain calls, not all calls. So it's Carmen, we're laughing because you're talking to two people who, like, probably don't very often feel like we're tired of making decisions. So my guess is the two of us may not be the best people in the world to listen to at this point, but we can try.
Speaker 1:I think there's a Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Carmen.
Speaker 1:I think you see it happen with clients, right, we do.
Speaker 3:We do, yeah, and we can talk a little bit about that too, like what leads into part of that right, and I think there is a fundamental piece underneath this that, as leaders, we really do need to address. I think part of decision fatigue comes from not delegating some of those decisions. So think about this. You know, Carmen, all the staff I mean first of all, 20-something staff to report directly to you is a huge number Too many.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're working. I'm working with a client right now who has 13 direct reports and does not have enough time to be able to do anything other than just like run flat out and in that 13, if any of them are not like making the calls that they should be making. So, in other words, instead of it sticking at that level, it's coming up a level like tell me what to do, how do I do this? What's the right answer, which you hear all of the time, is people coming in and asking permission or asking for feedback or information to make their own decisions in that particular spot. Now you're not making the decision of your role, you're making the decisions of lots of other people's roles and in that spot we sometimes create our own problems by not pushing decisions down to the level of the staff where it should be.
Speaker 3:And, scott, sometimes you talk about that chain. Right, if the bottom of the chain isn't doing their job, then the next level has to do it. And that means every level gets pulled down a level into that spot. And the further down that you are pulled and the further down people are like hell, no, I'm not making that call. Nope, that's not my call. I better get somebody to tell me, the more decisions get heaped on an executive's shoulders.
Speaker 2:If you have decision fatigue, the reality is you're making the wrong decisions, and I think there's this piece of you're making decisions that aren't at your level and you're allowing people to not make the decisions that they should be making at their level. Now we'd likely have to unpack that to say is it because they won't make them or is it because you, as the leader, won't let them?
Speaker 2:Right make them, or is it because you, as the leader, won't let them Right? And it could be column A or column B or a combination of both. And the other reality is, if you're making that many decisions and you truly have decision fatigue, you probably are also making wrong or bad decisions.
Speaker 3:Why do you say that? Because you're tired.
Speaker 1:You're tired.
Speaker 2:You're not thinking as clearly as you could or should. I had to decide what I'm having for lunch, and now I'm wore out and I can't decide what, and so, like there is and there is research out there that talks about if I do have to make too many decisions, I will start that like that, brain power is not infinite.
Speaker 3:What's interesting, carmen, in terms of you were like I don't want to make you know the the lunch decision. See, what's interesting about that is that's actually a good choice. And what I mean by that is, if you are in a space where you are the person who has to make a lot of decisions, lunch doesn't matter, right, let's go back to you know, what side of the bed are you sleeping on? Some of these things don't matter. The consequences of whatever decision that we make is so minimal that those are decisions that, if you're in that world, those are ones that give up. And honest to goodness, I mean.
Speaker 3:I think about that typical fight. You come home from work and it's like I don't feel like cooking, so we're going out to dinner. And then you have this battle about where you're going out to dinner and that space. It's like I don't care, I made this decision, I'm not cooking. Somehow or another we're going to eat. I'm not cooking. Okay, somehow or another we're going to eat.
Speaker 3:You figure out, you know, somehow or another we're going to eat. I'm just telling you. I have nothing to do with the cooking side of this thing, right, and it was really funny when I figured that out with my husband, michael. Now I'm like I'm not cooking tonight and he's like all right, and he knows exactly what that means. He has to either bring food in, pull something out of the freezer that he can stick in the oven, right, or we're going out and he has to make all of those decisions because I'm done making decisions in that particular spot, which is really what that means. I'm just done making the decisions today in that area. So that's an interesting piece of that is, what decisions can you easily give away? I mean really like who cares decisions? Absolutely give those puppies away.
Speaker 1:And yet somehow make the decision maker feel like it's a valuable decision.
Speaker 3:It is to me, because every time when Michael's like, okay, we're going to go, fill in the blank, I'm like that's perfect and that's so. You also can't argue with them when you give that decision away. You have to be like whatever they say, you can live with, right. So if my husband comes back and says, okay, I'm going to go get McDonald's, the answer is that's perfect. Okay, I'm going to go get McDonald's, the answer is that's perfect, right, because I've given it away, I need to then support that decision.
Speaker 3:And that's the mistake that sometimes it's like we still have vested interest in this smaller decision, versus if we could say I don't, I am going to be happy with whatever that is, and you know this, this thing where it's like I want my cake and eat it too. I don't want to make the decision, but you better make the right one. That's part of the reason why they ended up in that decision fatigue in the first time is because there are other people are making decisions. They don't like those decisions, so that they undo them and then pretty soon no one around them will make those decisions.
Speaker 2:Why make a decision if you're just going to undo it?
Speaker 3:Correct. So this piece around that I kind of get that. People get there. I think what we're really saying is, before you're like, hey, don't make me make any more decisions, it's think about how you're contributing to that fatigue yourself. Are you making decisions for others that they should be making for themselves? Are you over-invested in whatever these decisions are and you can't live with the consequences? There's a thing there that you should be looking at too, because is your brain always the right brain and is your answer always the right answer? Is your brain always the right brain and is your answer always the right answer?
Speaker 3:Now Scott might say, yes, right, but the fact of the matter is we all kind of have decisions that could easily be delegated to others, and you know they're experienced enough, they have enough gray matter, we've taught them how to think things through and in that spot we should trust their decision. And then, if it's not perfect, they learn through iteration. That's how all of us learn by not making perfect decisions, by the next piece of information coming in. So decisions most of them are not final. Decisions can be moved as more information comes in too, and if you get to the place where you think this is such an important decision is it really? Is it a once and done decision, or is this a for now decision? And that's the other thing? We can build this thing into something so big that it's not really that big right Now.
Speaker 3:Buying a house pretty big decision. Getting married pretty big decision. Where we go on vacation, it's just a week, right. A job, it's just for a time frame. A job is not necessarily forever, unless, of course, you work for us that's different, but in most right, all of these are things that can be changed and or modified over time. It's not forever. Scott, is there anything else that you would say leads to this?
Speaker 2:I mean, I keep thinking about this piece of. If you're feeling this decision fatigue, you know. Now it is time to start to analyze what is driving that. So I love Carmen's examples. So if it's decisions about lunch and some of these things, it's like okay, what do you need to put around yourself so that you have less decisions? Or you think about what Facebook dude, right, zuckerberg, he wears the same outfit every day. One less decision.
Speaker 2:And again some people say, whoa, I can't do that in my job. And I'm not saying that, those are the thing, it's just starting to unpack. Where are you making those decisions? And if you find this group of decisions that someone else should be making, before you just blindly delegate, of course you have to do the leadership work to say have I been holding too tight? Have I been Monday morning quarterbacking and not allowing them and changing it? Have I ever said just go ahead, please make that decision. Have I ever done those things? Because I do need to give it away and put it in the right place and I think sometimes people they're just making the decisions. They haven't put the thought into it and the right level of thought. Where am I going for lunch? Yeah, that's a 10-second decision, if that.
Speaker 3:I think it might be interesting in this space to simply sit down and almost do an inventory. So you know, like, what decisions have you made? You know and just like, keep a log. Here are the decisions that I made on Monday. Here are the decisions I made on Tuesday, here are the decisions I made on Wednesday. Keep a log and let's look at it for a week At the end of that week.
Speaker 3:Right, take a look and say what decisions of these could I have turned over with little or no negative consequence? Because I do think that there is oftentimes at work staff members who are going to come to you and ask you to make a decision that they could have made themselves, and ask you to make a decision that they could have made themselves. And, carmen, you asked us a question about reverse delegation, I don't even know, a couple of months ago, and that really is this reverse delegation piece. And when you look at all the decisions that you made over the course of the week, my guess is that you have certain staff members who have come in and said not said out loud, but by their actions are saying I don't want to make this call, I'll get my boss to make this call for me, so I don't have to think it through and or be responsible for it. And so now you can see that pattern. So a couple of things that happen. One I can see what kind of decisions that I'm making that really I can delegate. Two, is there a staff member who is responsible for some of that? And then I can make choices about how to move forward in that and I can sit down and I can say hey, billy Bob, you know, last week you came into the office and I actually was writing down like how many decisions I made, and I made 29 decisions for you last week. Let's look through this real quickly. What does that mean and what does that suggest? And more than likely, billy Bob doesn't even know that he's doing it.
Speaker 3:Billy Bob might simply be coming in and asking for permission right, because many people do that. They literally go to their boss and they think, oh, I should get permission. But if I notice that with Billy Bob, it's so easy for me to say you have permission for these things, okay, I don't need to be involved in these decisions. So now you get to also start like setting expectations and setting boundaries in that particular spot, because, again.
Speaker 3:I believe so many times somebody comes and asks me a question, I answer that question. That answer is a decision right, and in those spaces now I've escalated the number of decisions that I've made without knowing it, unintentionally. I'm in that spot where I'm making decisions that really aren't mine to make. So I do think it's this analysis and then looking and saying how am I contributing to it? Do I have individuals that are contributing to it? And then taking action and getting decision making put in the right place inside of the organization, right, and as a boss, saying that's your call, and that is one of the things that many bosses don't do. We're told to be servant leaders, but we misinterpret what that means.
Speaker 2:Okay, we don't misinterpret it, it is bastardized, correct. I mean, let's just. I mean people look at it and say I need to. That could be a whole, nother lengthy, long podcast. It's true, and I think you're right. It is looking at it and saying is this my decision? If no, whose? And put it in the spot that it needs to be. And you might have to work side by side with them for a window of time to support them so that they're making decisions within the boundaries. You need them to make Yep Totally appropriate and if you continue to have decision fatigue, there's likely some work to do for you to say am I just? Do I need to build that muscle?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that piece of do I need to build others' competencies? And that piece of do I need to build others' competencies? Do I need to build my own competency of boundaries and saying no and handing that thing back in those spaces? I'm guessing anybody who is listening to this and they're like, but I do have it. Well, more than likely, a little bit of analysis is going to show you those two things right. I have individuals who are saying no to me or are like not wanting to make their own decisions. I'm going to have to work with them to get them there Because, remember, right, you should not be doing their work. They need to be doing their work right. And then this other side too, this spot that says am I holding onto? Something's too tight. And once you figure out those two things, you can start to take action to make it better.
Speaker 3:Important decisions there are decisions that leaders should make. What are yours? Where's your line right? What's the place where it really has risen to? It's your responsibility. Outside of that, we should be pushing those decisions back to staff and letting staff be involved in those decisions, as well as the consequences that come with them. That's a learning curve and that's how they become the next level up. And the next level up and the next level up is by looking at those things, thinking those things, through making decisions, living with the consequences of that. That's how you build employee skill sets and it's important that you're doing that as well.