A simple Google search for “how many decisions do we make per day” will yield a mind-boggling answer of 35,000. That’s just an average for a simple human being.
What about for a CEO or business owner? Maybe it’s more that 35,000 … or maybe they just make “more important” decisions on daily basis. But that’s not really the point.
Business owners, CEOs, and leaders from all walks of life suffer from decision fatigue.
In fact, some very famous leaders are going to great length to help reduce the number of decisions they have to make – even the simplest decisions!
As examples:
- Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day so he never had to make a decision about what to wear. (Mark Zuckerberg took a clue on this from Jobs, as well.)
- Author, Tim Ferriss, is said to eat the same breakfast each day to avoid having to decide what to prepare every morning.
- It’s been reported that as president, Barack Obama limited his lower-priority email responses to “Agree,” “Disagree” or “Discuss” to reduce his mental burden.
Decision fatigue is a real issue for leaders, and should be taken seriously. Scientists have discovered that decision-making power is a depletable resource. As the day goes on, our ability to process data and make good, sound decisions weakens dramatically.
This research can have serious implications for businesses and organizations.
Too many leaders hog decisions.
This scenario may sound familiar to you:
As the leader, you don’t FULLY delegate technical decisions to your IT person, or delegate marketing decisions to your CMO. After all, it only you takes a few minutes to review and approve their proposals/ideas – right?
FACT : most leaders claim they delegate, but in reality most do not.
As an example, say you task your CMO to develop and execute a social media campaign around a new product or service launch. You ask to review it before it’s launched.
Sound familiar?
That is not delegating.
True delegation requires that you empower that person with the final decision, as well.
It’s hard to do, we know. But it’s necessary.
Empowering others with decision authority not only significantly reduces the number of decisions YOU have to make, it energizes and elevates your team. It’s also critically important in cultivating and developing a high-performance organization.
So, are YOU a decision hog?
Decision fatigue is real – and dangerous for businesses. Leaders are well-served to understand what real delegation is and to start doing it in order to reduce the number of decisions they have to make. It’s time to give up being a decision hog and empower your team of people with real decision making authority.
So … what decisions are YOU going to delegate this week?
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If you’re ready to take your business and leadership skills to the next level, and if you think your business could benefit from more insights like what’s offered in this article, let’s start a conversation. LXCouncil may be the perfect next step!
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