The Most Important Leadership Question This Year

The Hidden Cost of Doing Everything

Most middle and senior leaders did not get where they are by being selective. They got there by being capable, reliable and willing. Saying yes worked. For a long time.

Until it didn’t.

The cost of over-commitment rarely shows up as a single failure. It appears gradually. Strategic thinking gets squeezed out by operational noise. Decisions become reactive. Teams wait rather than act. Energy drains, but output does not improve.

Busyness creates a convincing illusion of progress. Movement is mistaken for momentum.

The reality is simpler and more uncomfortable. When everything is important, nothing gets your best thinking.

Why Subtraction Is So Hard

Most leaders default to adding rather than removing. Add a meeting to solve a problem. Add a report for visibility. Add a new tool to speed things up. Addition feels active and responsible.

Subtraction feels risky, even reckless.

Stopping something can feel like retreat, loss or failure, especially in cultures that quietly reward endurance over judgement. Yet the leaders who scale their impact over time learn a different lesson. Focus is not created by clarity alone. It is protected by elimination.

This is where leadership maturity shows up. Not in how much you can carry, but in what you are willing to put down.

The Question That Changes Everything

For a moment, instead of asking What should I prioritise? try asking:

If I were starting this role again today, which of these things would I not take on?

That single shift cuts through habit, guilt and sunk cost. It separates what genuinely matters from what has simply always been there.

Leaders who use this lens start making different decisions very quickly.

They stop attending meetings where their presence adds little value. They stop chasing opportunities that dilute core strengths. They stop holding onto decisions that should belong elsewhere. They stop mistaking responsiveness for leadership.

None of this looks dramatic. All of it compounds.

How Strong Leaders Decide What to Drop

The most effective leaders use a small number of practical filters, applied consistently.

First, they are brutally honest about impact versus effort. High effort, low impact work is the easiest place to start. If it is draining energy without materially shifting outcomes, it belongs on the exit list.

Second, they notice emotional yes-es. The commitments accepted out of guilt, fear of missing out, or a desire to be seen as helpful. These are rarely strategic. They are often the most expensive in the long run.

Third, they get realistic about capacity. Not theoretical capacity. Human capacity. Change fatigue, learning curves and cognitive load all count, even if they never appear in a plan.

And finally, they review regularly. Elimination is not a one-off January exercise, although it is a good place to start. It should be a quarterly discipline.

What Happens When You Stop Filling Every Gap

One of the biggest fears leaders have is that if they stop doing so much, something important will be missed. In practice, the opposite tends to happen.

When space appears, three things improve.

Strategic thinking returns. Not rushed thinking between meetings, but proper reflection on direction, risk and long-term value.

Leadership quality improves. Conversations deepen. Delegation becomes real. People grow rather than wait.

Relationships strengthen. Time shifts from transactional contact to meaningful engagement with customers, stakeholders and teams.

The organisation does not slow down. It sharpens.

The Real Test of Leadership

Saying no is not about being difficult. It is about being deliberate.

Every 'yes' is a decision to spend finite attention in one place rather than another. Leaders who understand this stop trying to prove their value through volume and start demonstrating it through judgement.

This year does not need another set of stretch goals layered onto an already full system. It needs leaders willing to question what they are carrying and why.

The most powerful planning document you create this year may not be a strategy deck.

It may be a quiet, well-considered list titled:

Things I Am No Longer Going to Do.

That is not complacency. That is leadership.

Oh, and Happy New Year! 😁