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697. Decision Fatigue — The Hidden Leadership Drain · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IA Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
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• 0:39
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• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I need everybody Brian Smith here with the I team series and your daily influence and today we are going to be talking about decision making making decisions for some of us.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: can actually get quite tiring.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I have this thing we call decision fatigue.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, decision making is often viewed as one of the most important responsibilities we have.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: As leaders, I'm not just talking about the big leaders, I'm talking about throughout an entire organization.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't hear what you are doing, digging ditches, cooking food, serving food, doing taxes, love.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: the decisions we make can be tiring.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it is very important.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It is our biggest responsibility because our decisions influence.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: But what we often don't prepare ourselves for recognizes that too many decisions is actually a sign of a broken system, not a strong one.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today, we're going to talk about something that really quietly drains us all the time.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know about many of you, but I get a call when I'm just, you know, my brain feels like mushing.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: It comes from decision fatigue.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's that mental exhaustion that comes from being the default answer person for everything in everyone because if everything in your business requires your judgment,
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: you didn't build a leadership structure, you built dependency, and dependency doesn't scale.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't even grow will.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like many business owners wear decision making like a badge of a honor, you know, they all come to me.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm involved in everything, and I always know what's going on, but what that really creates is cognitive saturation.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're overwhelmed.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: We might not realize if we might even thrive in it, but every small decision pricing approvals higher in nuances, client responses, it chimps away at your ability to make high-quality decision where it actually matters, then here's the truth, not all decisions are equal.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: your brain treats them like they are.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's where fatigue sets in.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when fatigue sets in, decision quality drops.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is where leaders start reacting instead of leading.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Most people think delegation is about getting things off their play, but it's not delegation is about building decision ownership into the organization.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: If your team constantly comes back to you for validation,
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: You haven't delegated.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've just reassigned tasks and mature leadership looks like this clear expectations to find authority levels and agreed upon decision boundaries.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: When those exist, you team doesn't need to ask you what to do.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: They already know how to think.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, that's the shift.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: It goes from, let me approve this to here's how we decide this.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's responsible influence in action.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: In a properly built system decisions are not made emotionally or repeatedly, they are made structurally.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is where smart becomes powerful, specific.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: What exactly is being deciding, measurable?
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  [SPEAKER_01]: What defines success or failure?
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is irrelevant, does this align with our goals or core values for our mission?
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And timely, when does this decision need to occur?
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Is this the right time?
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: When those filters are embedded into your operations, you remove thousands of unnecessary decisions, because the system already answers them.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what remains, the decisions that actually require
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: not approvals.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So look, this is the hard truth.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: If every decision flows to the owner, it's not because the team isn't capable.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's because the system is unclear.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: People don't avoid responsibility.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: They avoid uncertainty.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when your organization lacks clarity, you become the clarity, which means you become the bottleneck and eventually the constraint to growth.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Strong leaders don't make more decisions.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: They design systems that make most decisions unnecessary.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So at the end of the day, leadership is in about being needed for every answer.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's about building an environment where the right answers happen without you.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Decision fatigue is not just a personal issue.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a structural signal.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's an opportunity to step back and ask, where am I still the system?
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And where should the system be doing the work?
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Because of everything requires your judgment,
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  [SPEAKER_01]: you didn't build it to grow or scale.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: You built it to depend.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the most responsible form of influence is creating clarity that out lives your constant involvement.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I hope you've enjoyed today's daily influence.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope you have an amazing day and we'll talk to you again soon.