Executive wellbeing and the cost of instant answers
Immediate responses can reassure an organisation while quietly making its senior leaders less available for the decisions that need considered thought.
The performance question
An instant answer is a persuasive little product. It is visible, gratifying and easy to praise. A carefully considered answer often looks, for a while, exactly like no answer at all. This creates an incentive problem for executives who wish to appear responsive. They can spend the day proving their availability while the most consequential question waits untouched. Corporate wellness should examine this demand for reassurance. The issue is not whether leaders should be accessible. It is whether every request deserves access on the same terms, regardless of importance or consequence.
What the evidence supports
Research on attention residue describes how attention can remain attached to a previous task after switching. HSE guidance also recognises workload demands and the value of employee control over how work is done. These support treating interruptions as a work design issue. They do not prove that a fixed response delay improves leadership performance or that urgent matters should wait. Laboratory and experimental findings cannot simply be converted into a universal productivity loss for every message received.123
A practical approach
Agree response expectations by consequence. Define the route for safety, material client risk or an operational stoppage, and separate it from ordinary requests for reassurance. Give colleagues a reliable time for decisions that can wait. Ask requesters to include the decision needed, relevant context and their recommendation. Protect some periods for work that cannot sensibly be completed between messages. Make the arrangement visible so silence is not interpreted as indifference. The executive must also respect the agreement rather than rewarding every bypass with an immediate answer.
How to review progress
Look at decisions completed, avoidable escalations and the age of unresolved important work. Check whether colleagues receive enough certainty to proceed without repeatedly chasing. Ask whether an assistant or deputy has inherited an unmanageable filtering burden. A response standard should make the organisation more dependable, not merely make a senior person harder to reach. If the pattern works, explain it as a service arrangement rather than a privilege. The point is to provide the right kind of access, not to persuade everyone that leadership has become too important to answer.
Sources and references
- Attention residue when switching between work tasks Opens in a new tab
Sophie Leroy, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2009
Original research: abstract and two experimental studies
- Management Standards: Control Opens in a new tab
Health and Safety Executive
Pace of work, initiative, breaks and consultation
- Human factors: Workload Opens in a new tab
Health and Safety Executive
Processing limits, task analysis, workload drift and staffing
Discuss your corporate wellness priorities with Isabella
If this reflects a challenge in your organisation, contact Isabella to discuss where pressure is affecting performance and what a practical next step could look like.
Email enquiries@verdevitae.com or contact Isabella directly on WhatsApp Business for the most immediate way to get in touch. Response times depend on availability.
Contact Isabella on WhatsAppExplore our corporate wellness advisory or use the free business wellbeing calculators to consider the questions you would like to discuss.