The Power of Focus

Leaders are struggling to focus, and many are finding it increasingly difficult to keep their teams focused as well. This is one of the top leadership challenges I am seeing right now.

Calendars are full, project lists are constantly changing, and teams are always in motion. Activity and focus can feel like they are working against each other, especially when priorities compete head-to-head. When everything is important, nothing stands out from the noise.

Disruption is normalized, priorities shift quickly, and teams are constantly stretched. In this environment, a lack of focus slows progress, creates confusion, erodes trust, and increases the risk of burnout.

When leaders lack focus, predictable patterns show up:

• Teams receive mixed signals about what truly matters
• People hedge, multitask, and delay decisions
• Work expands to fill every available hour (and then some)

Focus is about being intentional with attention, energy, and commitment. It means making clear choices about what deserves them and what doesn’t.

When leaders protect what matters most, focus becomes a powerful force. It sharpens decisions, improves execution, and helps people understand how their work contributes to outcomes that matter.

Lead with intention

Focus starts at the top. Leaders set the tone with what they say, but more importantly, through what gets their attention.

Leading with intention means being clear and explicit about:

• What matters and why
• What you can put on hold
• What you’re willing to trade off (read: let go entirely)

One of the hardest parts of focus is deciding whether to delay or stop a project or a priority. When you make a decision like this, take a moment to recognize it, close the loop with everyone involved, and then stick to the decision. A common mistake I see leaders making is not clearly communicating when a priority or project has been shifted, paused, or stopped. When this happens, work often quietly continues in the background.

This creates confusion. People keep working “just in case,” and focus erodes.

When you stop something, be clear:

• Is it stopped permanently or paused?
• Is another priority taking its place?
• What contributed to this decision?

Ask “Why is this important?”

Focus sharpens when leaders repeatedly ask one simple question: Why is this important?

This isn’t a one-time exercise. Ask yourself, “Why is this important:”

• To the business?
• To my team?
• To me as a leader?

If you can’t clearly articulate the answer at each level, it’s a useful signal. Either the work isn’t as critical as you thought, or the purpose hasn’t been fully thought through.

When leaders connect priorities to meaning, engagement rises. When they don’t, work becomes transactional, fragmented, and disconnected.

Break large priorities into bite-sized pieces

Leaders also lose focus by setting priorities that are nonspecific and far too broad.

Big priorities may feel inspiring at first, but they often overwhelm teams in practice:

• “Transform customer experience”
• “Modernize our systems”
• “Drive process change”

Without breaking priorities down, it is easy for them to become abstract and overwhelming.

Focused leaders break big priorities into smaller, meaningful pieces with measurable milestones:

• What does progress look like in the next 30, 60, or 90 days?
• Who is responsible for what?
• What can be finished, not just started?

The steps still connect to something larger, while giving teams clear, measurable pieces they can move forward with along the way.

One of the most common traps I notice many leaders falling into is ‘cosmetic focus’.

Consider a senior leadership team that starts with a list of 30 or 40 priority projects and initiatives. After some difficult conversations about prioritization, they narrow down the list by 50%. Success? On paper, it certainly looks like progress. But a closer look shows that the narrower list of 15 or 20 prioritized projects are just the original 40 projects in disguise.

Projects get bundled together. Priorities are shoehorned into broader categories. Nothing really stops or even gets deferred.

The result is a sense of progress without real relief. The work hasn’t changed, only the labels have.

Focus comes from making real choices and tradeoffs, not reshuffling the list.

You can add while you are taking work away

Focus doesn’t mean just stripping everything down to bare bones. Sometimes, removing work creates space to add something better.

The throughline is intentionality. Adding projects without removing anything leads to overload and diluted efforts. Removing without refocusing leads to missed opportunities.

Focused leaders design space for better work, rather than just reducing tasks.

Shorter timelines create greater focus

Long timelines are another enemy of focus. When everything is “this year” or “next year,” urgency fades and scopes expand. Projects drift. Priorities blur.

Shorter timelines force clarity:

• What truly needs to happen now?
• What can wait?
• What assumptions might change in 30 days, next quarter etc.?

In fast-moving environments, focus comes from revisiting plans often and adjusting them with fresh eyes.

Get help when you’re too close

Leaders can get too close to their own work to see where focus has drifted. Or they may become too vested in certain projects.

Getting help might mean:

• A peer who challenges your assumptions
• A coach who asks uncomfortable questions
• A team member who understands the impact firsthand

Outside perspective helps surface hidden overload, duplicated effort, and priorities that no longer serve their intended purpose.

Watch for scope creep

Even the most focused, detailed, and measurable plans are vulnerable to scope creep.

The risk is a neatly packaged and streamlined project list slowly grows over time. A small exception becomes a new standard. An extra step is added. A paused initiative quietly returns.

Focused leaders actively watch for this. They ask:

• What have we added back in (and why)?
• Does this still align with our stated priorities?
• What needs to be removed again?

Focus is not a one-time event. It’s an ongoing leadership discipline.

The bottom line

Focus means doing the work that will have the greatest impact with intention, clarity, and discipline.

In a world that constantly pulls leaders in every direction, the ability to focus may be one of the most valuable and visible leadership skills you can build.