Picture this for a moment.
An Amazon executive shared that he receives 1,500 to 2,000 emails every single day. Out of those, only 15 to 20 are genuine emergencies. Yet he can only deal with two or three.
Most leaders hear that and think the message is about volume. It isn’t. The real lesson is about precision.
High-performing leaders know exactly where to put their time for the biggest impact. They don’t chase fires. They build systems so fires never ignite in the first place. Managers respond. Leaders prevent.
After working with more than 3,000 leaders across industries, I’ve seen the same pattern repeat. The ones who scale understand this truth:
Your biggest constraint isn’t capacity. It’s clarity.
You try to solve everything because everything feels important. It isn’t. Ninety percent of what lands in your inbox has nothing to do with moving the business forward. When you treat every problem like your problem, you turn into the bottleneck without realising it.
Here’s what works instead.
You decide in advance what deserves your attention. You protect your thinking time with the same discipline you expect from your teams. You train your leaders to diagnose before escalating. You build simple systems that remove noise and surface only what matters.
This is the shift that separates overwhelmed managers from high-performance operators.
Three coaching questions I’d ask you today:
- What are you reacting to that you should be designing out of your system?
- Which parts of your role generate disproportionate impact, and how much of your week sits there?
- If you stopped solving “urgent” problems for seven days, what would your team learn to handle without you?
You scale by reducing friction, not by working harder. When you remove the noise, the path becomes obvious.
If this hits a nerve, good. It means you’re ready for the conversation that actually changes things.
What’s the biggest constraint you need to remove next?
When you are ready to find out more, here are a few ways you can connect with me
- Tired of leadership advice that doesn’t work in the real world? → Get practical insights that actually work
- Stuck in the leadership weeds and can’t see a way out? → Book your 1:1 Strategic Breakthrough Session
- Ready to reclaim 6+ hours weekly and lead with confidence instead of firefighting in chaos? → Discover Amplify
- Exhausted from your team needing constant oversight and direction? → Transform them with WoW
- Burning out from leadership overwhelm? → Get the antidote (my book)
- Ready to lead difficult conversations with confidence? → Download the free PIXAR Tool
