The Invisible Pothole

When I worked in city management, I remember resurfacing a pothole with new asphalt, fresh striping, and even LED streetlights. With routine maintenance, that repair will likely last 15+ years. What we did not resurface was the way we made decisions. Looking back, I really wish we had.

Today, in my work coaching local government executives all across the country, I see the same pattern repeatedly. Decisions function like that patch of pavement. They look solid on the surface, but under sustained pressure, they begin to crack in real time. Oftentimes, the cost stays totally invisible until judgment falters, and it is usually at the moment leaders can least afford it. This pattern has a name: decision fatigue.

Decision fatigue is something anyone who relies on executive functioning will likely encounter at some point in their life or career. It is not a failure of motivation or effort or discipline. It is “cognitive compression” caused by sustained decision demand over time. Basically, when leaders are required to make too many decisions without adequate structural support, they may find that their cognitive capacity narrows. Judgment actually becomes harder to sustain.

If decision fatigue is cognitive compression, I invite you to think about compression in physical terms. It is about making something smaller, more narrow, and existing in a smaller space. In other words, when you experience decision fatigue, your range is reduced and some of your flexibility may be lost. In local government leadership, this shows up not considering other perspectives, quicker impulsive choices over depth, and less tolerance for ambiguity. This is what happens before anything explicitly “breaks.” It’s like that water main that looks fine until it fails… just remember that that pipe has been corroding underneath for months.

The COVID Conference-Call Fiasco (a Case Study)

March 2020. Two-week quarantine order. I was part of the team that had to make 200+ decisions in five days: who works remotely, who’s essential, and how to keep payroll alive (the hard truth here was layoffs were looking like a reality). By day six, the load was so high that we chose not to fast-track the video-conferencing license already in IT pilot. Instead, we directed over 100 staff members to use the existing three conference-call lines for their meetings.

Result:

• Staff couldn’t share screens to review maps or budgets.
• Call quality tanked and not everyone could be heard if they could get on an unused conference call line.
• Individuals and departments started buying their own video conferencing tools without a centralized contract or IT support.

This did not stop us from doing our jobs. We were still “effective.” We still showed up. We still worked hard (doubly hard). I would say that everyone did the absolute best they could with what they had. We even believed that would only last a few weeks, but in the end, it took nearly two years to get everyone back into the office. 

The important lesson here is that the initial technology decision lacked the depth and range it deserved because it was made in a cognitively compressed state, aka decision fatigue. Then, we spent six months untangling the downstream effects of that decision. I believe today, that if we had named the decision fatigue at hour 40 instead of day 10, we could have pushed the enterprise-wide solution already in the works saving us time and a lot of staff angst.

Three Design Standards for Your Cognitive Infrastructure

Now that you understand what decision fatigue is and how it can present itself in local government, let’s take a look at three strategies to help mitigate decision fatigue. 

1. Post the Load-Limit Sign (aka Set Boundaries)

Just as we post weight limits on bridges, post your personal decision capacity. Think about what hours are the best for you to make strategic decisions (usually earlier in the day). That means do not waste those first 90 minutes in the morning on email. Instead, try setting up (the day before) a list of strategic decisions that you want to make and do that in the first hour or two in the office.

• Peak cognitive hours = strategic decisions.
• Everything else = batch, delegate, or automate.

I now block 8-10 a.m. for strategic business decisions or brainstorming; after 10 a.m. for coaching client calls; after 6 p.m. I do not hold coaching sessions.

2. Clarify Ownership Like a Chain-of-Custody Form (aka Assign Roles)

This is as easy as using a one-page RACI for recurring decisions. If they are good for infrastructure project planning, then they are great for determining the who’s who of decision making in your organization. When everyone is clear and knows who owns the final call, then you stop mentally carrying it. Giving you back more decision making space.

• R = Recommends (staff analyst)
• A = Approves (director)
• C = Consults (legal, finance)
• I = Informed (council liaison)

3. Schedule Maintenance Windows (aka Routine Maintenance Plan)

Roads get sealed at night; your brain gets sealed with sleep. It is true that we do not try to do road maintenance during rush hour, so it is likely you will not be able to find time to take a nap in the middle of the day. Instead, focus on setting your own non-negotiables around sleep, food, exercise, and water. They all help your cognitive function. My example is below.

• Non-negotiable: 7 hours sleep, 30 minutes exercise (3x per week), 80% of meals are without flour or added sugar.
• Quarterly: “Decision audit” day, no meetings so I can review which decisions need to be made or pivoted.
   

Decision Fatigue Through the Lens of Women’s Leadership

Is decision fatigue any different for women in leadership? In my experience coaching local government leaders, decision fatigue affects all leaders regardless of gender. The difference for many women leaders is not whether or when decision fatigue appears, but in how it is experienced and carried.

In leadership roles, women are responsible for the same strategic, operational, and policy decisions as their male counterparts. At the same time, they are more likely to carry additional layers of decision labor that are more informal, relational, and largely invisible. This includes translating emotion in tense situations, anticipating reactions from residents or elected officials, smoothing conflict before it escalates, and managing the interpersonal aftermath of difficult choices. These types of responsibilities require judgment, timing, and choice. They are decisions, even if they are rarely labeled as decisions.

Because this type of work is not formally assigned or easily tracked, it often runs in parallel to other official duties rather than replacing them. Women leaders are not deciding instead of others; they are deciding in addition to others. The cumulative effect of this is a decision load that can be broader in scope and less bounded by the role, meeting, or calendar.

Why is this important to differentiate? This particular difference matters because decision fatigue is driven by total cognitive demand, not necessarily by the importance of any single decision. So, when decision labor is dispersed across domains and carried continuously, cognitive capacity narrows in subtle ways. Leaders remain effective and responsive, but the margin for ambiguity, perspective, and depth is reduced. From the outside, performance looks unchanged. Internally, the work requires more compression to sustain.

Addressing this difference does not require women to carry less responsibility. It requires organizations to make all types of labor visible and shared, especially relationship-oriented work.  When relational work is named, distributed, and supported, decision fatigue becomes a design challenge rather than a personal one. The result is not only more sustainable leadership for women, but stronger judgment capacity across the organization. It is important to note that this dynamic is not solely exclusive to women leaders, but it can appear more readily in their experience.

Practical Starting Points for Your Organization

Leaders who choose to take decision fatigue seriously often begin with small design shifts rather than sweeping change. Common starting points include naming decision fatigue explicitly within executive teams and agreeing on what it looks like in practice. Some leaders choose to address it on a personal level and map the decisions they made in a typical week just to identify which ones could be delegated. Others may batch low-impact decisions or establish clearer decision ownership at project kickoff using simple RACI-style clarity, not just for infrastructure projects, but for policy and program work as well.

If there is one high-leverage practice that leaders can choose to adopt, it is intentionally protecting time for strategic thinking. Limiting meetings during peak cognitive hours can feel difficult at first, especially in environments that reward constant availability. Over time, however, this discipline dramatically changes the quality of ALL your leadership decisions.

Final Takeaway and Reflection

Decision-making is the cognitive infrastructure of local government. Like our physical systems, it requires intentional design, clear load management, and routine maintenance if it is going to perform under pressure. When leaders treat decision capacity as something to steward rather than spend, judgment becomes more durable, perspective widens, and leadership is sustained over time.

For many leaders, the first signal that redesign is needed appears on the calendar. When decisions consistently default to one person or accumulate without clear ownership, the issue is rarely effort or commitment. It is structure. This is especially relevant for women leaders whose decision labor often spans both formal authority and informal responsibility. Addressing decision fatigue does not require doing less or caring less. It requires building systems that allow leaders to think clearly, remain grounded, and show up fully when their organizations and communities need them most. It is responsible governance.
 

Learn more about the work of ICMA's SheLeadsGov initiative and don't miss the SheLeadsGov Virtual Huddle Event, February 5 at 2 p.m. ET that will bring together women in local government to gain real-world strategies for sustaining effective leadership.