What do you drop when everything feels urgent?

I once worked with a senior product lead (we’ll call her Anna) who had 14 major items on her plate.

All of them tagged as critical. All of them “must-win” by quarter-end. No joke. She was skipping lunch to stay ahead of her own Jira board.

I asked her a simple question:

“What are your top 3 strategic priorities this quarter?”

She blinked.

She didn’t know.

And that’s when the shift started.

This isn’t about time. It’s about clarity.

If you’re leading in tech or engineering right now, you’ve probably felt it too.

You’re smart. Committed. Fast-moving.

But if you’re honest? You’re constantly reacting. Inbox. Meetings. Slack. Ad-hoc everything.

You might even look productive on the surface. But underneath it?

No real clarity. No shared focus. No signal. Just noise.

The Focus Gap is real, and it’s measurable.

What Anna was facing has a name: the Focus Gap.

Here’s the short definition:

A chronic mismatch between what leaders pay attention to and what actually drives strategic value.

When this gap opens, you:

• Burn energy on noise instead of impact
• Default to decision fatigue
• Create confusion downstream for your team

And the research backs it:

• 41% of the average workday is spent on low-value tasks (Deloitte, 2025)
• Only 22% of employees say their leaders provide clear direction (Gallup, 2021)
• 275 interruptions per day – and most leaders don’t even see them as disruptions (Microsoft, 2025)BLG #13 – Focus Gap_ Ma…

So if you’re constantly “reprioritizing” but still not moving the needle, you’re not failing.

You’re leading in a fog.

The distinction most leaders miss

Most people try to solve the problem by reordering their to-do list. Big mistake.

Because what you’re facing isn’t a priority gap. It’s a focus gap.

Focus = Direction Priority = Sequence

If you don’t know where you’re headed, it doesn’t matter what order you do things in.

And that’s what most teams are missing right now.

Here’s how to fix it

In my upcoming live session on August 12, I’ll walk you through four battle-tested tools that help leaders cut the noise and regain strategic focus.

But here’s a preview of one:

🔧 The Focus Ladder

Most leaders spend 80% of their time on level 1–2 tasks: firefighting, coordination, admin. But their real leverage lives in level 4–5: strategy, growth, and bold moves.

The ladder helps you map where your time’s going, and what needs to go.

Use it to:

• Spot wasted effort
• Say no to distractions (without guilt)
• Align your team around shared outcomes

Want to go deeper? Join the August 12 session.

We’ll spend 40 minutes walking through:

• Why the focus gap keeps opening, even in high-performing orgs
• How to distinguish signal from noise
• The four clarity tools every team should be using
• And what happens when leaders actually model focus

This isn’t theoretical.

You’ll leave with real frameworks and a sharper lens for your work and your team.

You don’t need more hours. You need more clarity.

Florin

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P.S. Want in? Register now for The Focus Gap in Leadership – When Everything Feels Like a Priority. Live on Zoom, August 12.

Register here: The Focus Gap

P.S.S. Save the day for Live2Lead Sweden 2025 – A half-day for future-proofing your leadership

📅 October 23rd

📌Uni3 by Geely, Gothenburg, Sweden