Advisor I Mentor

Sparring partner

Piotr

Kania

You start another day. A quick “hi, hi” as you walk into the office, coffee from the machine, and straight to work. You sit down at your computer, open your calendar, and at first glance you already know it won’t be easy. A meeting about a new strategic project, then a conference call on quarterly results, meanwhile several urgent emails from HQ and a request from the team for a decision that can’t be postponed.

Every topic labeled as important. Every one urgent. Every one treated as critical. Outlook leaves no illusions: another day ahead when everything looks as if the company’s future depends on it.

Once upon a time, labels like “priority,” “key,” “strategic” helped establish a hierarchy of action. Today, under the deluge of “can’t-wait” matters, they’ve lost their meaning. What was supposed to organize has become a source of confusion. Instead of a clear direction, there’s noise—where chaos is born easily and the sense of purpose is even easier to lose.

And that’s where the core questions appear: in this thicket, how do you truly distinguish what’s critical from what only pretends to be a priority? How do you create meaning and direction when everything around you is shouting that it’s the most important?

Once upon a time, labels like “priority,” “key,” “strategic” helped establish a hierarchy of action. Today, under the deluge of “can’t-wait” matters, they’ve lost their meaning. What was supposed to organize has become a source of confusion.

When no one decides

The answer to who should decide seems obvious—the manager, i.e., you. In practice, it often looks different. In many companies, whatever comes from “above” is, almost without reflection, passed straight down to the team. Who will dare tell the boss, “We can’t do it,” or “We have other priorities”? Very few—no one wants to sign their own sentence.

And so more projects, initiatives, and tasks land on calendars one after another, and all you can do is try to arrange them by hours or days. Rarely does the fundamental question arise: Should this really be at the center of our attention right now?

The result? Your team starts to sink. People feel that everything is important, so nothing stands out as truly essential. No one will say, “You can skip this,” or “We’ll park that for later.” The sense of bigger purpose disappears. Energy scatters across dozens of tasks competing for attention. Then inevitably come fatigue, frustration, and finally burnout.

Strategy is also about saying no

Many managers picture strategy as an ambitious plan packed with initiatives, projects, and goals—a kind of catalog of actions meant to move the company forward. In reality, the essence of strategy is different. Strategy is not a list of everything you could do. Strategy is choice.

Choice of direction, investments, resources. Equally important, the choice of what not to do.

Michael Porter, one of the most quoted thinkers on the topic, once said that “the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” And though this line is repeated so often it can sound like a cliché, its meaning is acutely relevant. In a world overflowing with initiatives where every project wears the “most important” tag, a leader’s true strength lies in the courage to say no.

It’s exactly the same in a manager’s work. Your job is not to be a courier of other people’s expectations, delivering everything that flows from above to your team. Your job is to be a filter. To pause, analyze, and set hierarchy. To ask uncomfortable questions: “Do we really have to do this now?” “What can we defer?” “Which actions are critical to our goals, and which are just add-ons?”

That’s not easy because it often requires pushback. It demands assertiveness upward and courage to discuss constraints. But this is precisely what separates a manager who leads from one who merely passes things along.

In the end, if the company’s strategy means making choices, then a manager’s day-to-day, operational strategy must mean the same.

Your job is not to be a courier of other people’s expectations, delivering everything that flows from above to your team. Your job is to be a filter. Pause, analyze, prioritize. Ask uncomfortable questions. It isn’t easy—it requires pushback, assertiveness with your superiors, and courage to talk about limits.

When the manager becomes the problem

As a manager, you should be a filter—someone who stops the noise, sets hierarchy, and passes on only what truly matters. But it often goes the other way. Ambition, the urge to prove yourself, perfectionism, and pressure for results mean that instead of a filter, you become an amplifier of chaos.

It’s an easy trap, because the world around you knows how to play your ambition. You often hear: “If anyone can do it, it’s you.” “I know I can count on you—you always deliver on time.” “Everyone’s watching this project; it’s worth making it perfect—this could be your springboard.”

It’s hard to say “no” then. It’s hard to refuse when someone appeals to your reputation, your sense of responsibility, or your aspirations. But that’s exactly how you get drawn into a game where the prize is recognition and the cost is overload—for you and your team.

The effect? Instead of being the leader who sets direction, you become the manager who takes on everything. The team gets more than it can realistically carry. Quality drops, frustration rises, and job satisfaction disappears. In the end it affects not only the company’s effectiveness, but also your health and your people’s well-being.

The paradox is painful: what was meant to prove your strength—perfectionism, ambition, “delivering everything”—becomes the source of your greatest weakness.

Ambition, the urge to prove yourself, perfectionism, and pressure for results mean that instead of a filter, you become an amplifier of chaos.

How to regain control?

Since you can’t do everything, the question is: how do you decide what truly matters? This is where the manager’s role as a filter begins, and it comes down to a few key steps.

1. Separate “must do” from “nice to have.” Strategy isn’t just big company-level slogans. It’s also the plan you and your team will execute—concrete quarterly goals, function projects, day-to-day tasks. Knowing where you’re headed and the path you’ve sketched is crucial. Only then can you consciously decide which new topics support your path and which distract. Without that, every task looks equally important and tries to jump to the front.

2. Map your resources. Know who you have, their competencies, and your team’s current condition. Know how many projects are already “on the table” and where the limits are before quality breaks. Every “yes” to something new is a “no” to something else. You have to solve that equation: what more can we take on without diluting outcomes or overloading people?

3. Stage projects over time. Paradoxically, most things labeled “priority” don’t have to happen tomorrow. Often they can wait—a week, a month, a quarter—without drama. Laying out a project timeline with the team brings clarity and safety. People see what’s “for now,” what’s next quarter, and what can wait. It’s not set in stone; it must live and change through the year. That’s precisely why it’s so important—a reference point when new demands appear.

4. Manage up. This is what separates a manager who merely “delivers” from one who truly leads. It takes courage and prep. It’s not about telling your boss “we can’t.” It’s about being a partner in the conversation—show the picture: what you’re already doing, with what resources, and the real consequences of adding more. Transparency becomes your shield. Your boss sees you’re in control—that you’re not dodging responsibility but managing it consciously. Often it turns out not everything is super urgent; some tasks can wait, others can go to different teams.

5. Manage down—and be consistent. Priorities can’t live only in your head—or your boss’s. They must be visible and clear to the team. That means not only saying what you are doing, but also what you explicitly aren’t. And here comes the hardest part: consistency—your consistency. You can’t say today “we’re not doing this,” and tomorrow punish people because it didn’t move. That kills trust. A manager can’t be a weather vane; you must be consistent in what you communicate. This is what strategy is: not only choosing what we do, but clearly stating what we don’t (Porter).

6. Review and update when things change. Priorities aren’t forever. Sometimes the situation shifts and you have to pause even a seemingly key project and move resources where the need suddenly grows. That doesn’t mean earlier decisions were wrong; this is the normal dynamic of teams and companies. One thing matters: communication. If you change direction, say clearly—to the team and to your superiors—why. People won’t feel lost or treated unfairly; they’ll understand the change makes sense and decisions remain coherent.

Build these six elements into how you handle the flood of “priorities,” and filtering stops being a one-off decision and becomes a daily practice. Conscious choice of what you do, realistic resource assessment, staging work over time, courage to talk upward, consistency with the team, and readiness to adjust in changing conditions together form the foundation of effective leadership. With them, you don’t amplify chaos—you set direction, build clarity, and restore a sense of meaning.

In a world flooded with urgent tasks, real courage is not doing everything—it’s deciding what’s truly worth doing.

Summary

If everything is a priority, nothing is. A leader’s role isn’t to pass pressure along but to filter, choose, and be consistent. It’s harder than mindlessly “delivering,” but it’s the only way to build meaning and direction. In the end, in a world flooded with urgent tasks, real courage is not doing everything—it’s deciding what’s truly worth doing.