Leadership Strategy & Performance
Cognitive Fatigue
Published Guide updated 2 min 42 sec
Sharon describes the cognitive fatigue she sees in leaders after years of COVID pressure. Decision quality is a limited daily resource, closer to a phone battery than an unlimited skill. She points to Roy Baumeister’s research, the way Barack Obama reduced trivial choices, and sleep as the main way to recharge.
Executive Summary
Key Takeaways
- Decision quality drops as the day’s choices pile up.
- Automate low-stakes choices so the real decisions still have fuel.
- Running out of willpower late in the day is a resource problem.
- Sleep is the first way to restore the capacity to decide well.
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Edited Transcript
A lot of the leaders Sharon works with were already tired before COVID, and two further years of it left them cognitively fatigued. The phrase means something specific: there is only so much high-quality brain power available in a day.
She compares the brain to a phone. When the battery is flat, it is flat. There are no spare resources for a high-quality decision. That is why someone can eat well all day and still finish on the couch with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s. The willpower to say no has already been spent.
She cites Roy Baumeister, whose research on this runs for about thirty years, and the story of Barack Obama hearing that work and wearing blue shirts and grey suits so he would not spend cognitive resources on a wardrobe. The same breakfast, the same lunch, the same café. The aim is to automate as many ordinary decisions as possible, because decision-making capacity falls with every choice.
Her clients want that capacity for the decisions at work, not for breakfast. The other half of the phone metaphor is charging it. Baumeister’s first recommendation, as she puts it, is sleep. Automate what you can, and protect a proper night’s sleep, and cognitive fatigue eases enough for better decisions through the day.
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