The Leadership Vampires: How Energy-Draining Decisions Spread in Organisations
Walk into certain workplaces and you can almost feel it in the air: a heaviness, a weariness, a sense that enthusiasm has been quietly bled away. Meetings limp along, once-promising initiatives stall, and even the most committed employees begin to disengage. It’s not laziness or lack of talent. More often than not, it’s the product of decisions that have quietly sucked the energy out of the organisation.
These are the leadership vampires. And the most unsettling part? They don’t arrive wearing capes or cloaks; they emerge from everyday choices leaders make, often with the best of intentions.
Yet walk into a different kind of workplace and the contrast is striking. The atmosphere feels lighter, conversations are energised, and people speak openly about priorities and progress. Decision-making is transparent, teams understand the “why,” and blockers are removed before they become frustrations. These organisations have built subtle protective systems, routines, norms, and honest dialogue, that act like garlic and sunlight against energy-draining behaviours. Instead of fear and confusion, there’s clarity, focus, and momentum. People feel safe to commit.
The Vampire Effect (aka Poor Decisions)
Energy-draining decisions don’t always look dramatic at first. They creep in subtly, revealing themselves in subtle but damaging patterns. A strategy may be announced on Monday, revised by Friday, and abandoned altogether the following week. Priorities are declared as “critical” across the board, leaving people unsure of what really matters. Processes become so tangled with approvals and sign-offs that progress grinds to a halt. And then there are the shiny-object projects that are launched with great enthusiasm only to wither when attention drifts elsewhere.
Each of these choices may seem minor in isolation. Yet together they create an atmosphere where people hesitate to commit, invest less energy, and protect themselves from disappointment. The result? Teams that feel not just tired, but quietly cynical.
Symptoms of Energy Drain
How can you tell if your organisation is being slowly drained by energy-sucking decision-making? The signs are often subtle at first: enthusiasm wanes even for well-designed projects, meetings lose their spark as silence and sarcasm replace curiosity, and a culture of passive compliance takes hold where people simply say, “just tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”
Over time, decision fatigue sets in, leaving teams paralysed by too many shifting directions. These symptoms rarely appear overnight; they creep in gradually, like a shadow lengthening across the office floor.
Why We Slip Into Vampire Mode
No leader deliberately sets out to drain their team’s energy, yet many slip into the trap because of structural pressures or hidden blind spots. A lack of clarity about long-term strategy can push them into reactionary choices, while the relentless pressure for quick wins undermines consistency. Fear of making the wrong call often leads to endless deliberation, and in the rush to decide, leaders may overlook the downstream effects, the way a choice made in haste can ripple outward in unintended and exhausting ways.
But it’s not only formal leaders who can drain energy. Every team has informal influencers, the sceptic who quietly dismisses new ideas, the bottleneck who hoards decisions, the gossip who erodes trust. Their behaviours can be just as draining. Part of leadership is noticing these patterns early and coaching or redirecting them before they spread.
Building Organisational Defences
Understanding these triggers is the first step towards preventing their spread. The good news is that organisations can build “defence systems” that act like sunlight and safeguards against energy vampires:
Clarity: Transparent processes and trade-offs build trust.
Consistency: Changes are made only when new evidence truly demands it.
Context: Leaders explain the why, not just the what, increasing commitment.
Participation: Employees have a real voice in shaping solutions, strengthening ownership.
Cadence: Reflection and adjustment replace lurching from one initiative to the next.
Cultural antibodies: Norms that reward curiosity, accountability, and constructive challenge.
These practices don’t merely prevent energy drain; they actively generate resilience and momentum, enabling teams to thrive even in uncertainty.
Leadership as Energy Guardianship
Perhaps the most powerful reframe is this: leadership is not only about setting direction or making the “right” calls. It’s about guiding the energy of your organisation. Every decision either replenishes or depletes that collective energy.
Leaders who recognise this responsibility become intentional about the choices they make. They don’t just ask, “Will this work?” but also, “Will this energise?” And they remain vigilant, noticing when other team members (intentionally or not) begin to drain energy too.
So here’s the question to carry with you: are your recent decisions giving your team life, or quietly draining it away?
This Halloween, instead of thinking about fictional vampires, consider the very real choices that shape the energy of your workplace. Because when leaders banish the vampires, and empower their defenders, what takes their place isn’t just productivity… it’s creativity, trust, and a team that feels fully alive.