The Leadership Reset Question That Drives Real Progress

🧭 Focus Area: D – Decide Sensibly and Swiftly 🔭 Vision Lens: Where To? Define where you’re going before deciding how to get there.

As a product leader, your biggest challenge isn’t just prioritizing features. It’s making decisions with confidence and clarity in a noisy, competing environment.

Your inbox is flooded with urgent asks:

• Customer Success needs a feature to reduce churn

• Sales wants a capability to close a deal

• Marketing is asking for something eye-catching to boost brand awareness

Every request is labeled “critical.” But not everything can be, and not everything should be.

So how do you decide what makes it into the roadmap?

You start by leading with vision. Then you ask the one question that brings focus.

“How will this help us get closer to where we want to go?”

That’s it.

It’s simple and powerful. It focuses the conversation on impact, not opinions.

This is what it looks like to decide sensibly and swiftly. When you lead with the Where To?, your team begins to filter their ideas through the lens of value and alignment, not urgency or noise.

Over time, they’ll come to you already thinking in terms of outcomes and tradeoffs. You’ll shift from reactive prioritization to strategic clarity.

Customize the Question to Fit Your Business Strategy

Depending on your current priorities, you might reframe the question to match the specific value you want to maximize:

• Revenue Impact: “How much new revenue will this drive?”

• Customer Acquisition: “Will this help us attract new customers?”

• Retention: “How does this reduce churn or deepen loyalty?”

• Segment Focus: “What’s the impact on our most important audience?”

• Strategic Alignment: “Does this support our quarterly or annual goals?”

The goal isn’t to ask every question. It’s to consistently ask the right one.

Model the Thinking. Multiply the Impact.

You don’t just need to make decisions. You need to create a culture of good decision-making.

That starts by being transparent about how you decide. Share tradeoffs. Explain your rationale. Show your team how you connected a feature request to a strategic outcome. This helps them learn how to think, not just what to do.

Next time they bring you an idea, they’ll come prepared with a compelling case because they’ll know what matters most.

Own Your Roadmap with Purpose

Roadmaps aren’t about features. They’re about focus.
When you root your decisions in your Where To?, you stay aligned with what matters most — for your customers, your company, and your team.

So next time someone makes a request, ask them:
“How will this help us get closer to where we want to go?”

And if you’re not sure how to define that destination, that’s where the real leadership work begins.

💬 Want help getting clear on your Where To? or roadmap decisions?
I offer free 30-minute strategy sessions to help product leaders find clarity and move forward with confidence. Email me at [email protected] or grab time directly below.

📅 Schedule Your Free Strategy Session

 

Hi, I’m Tami from Miami. I coach tech executives and their teams to become confident, strategic leaders. Through high-impact coaching and team workshops, I teach my L.E.A.D. framework so that every product decision, roadmap, and leader is aligned with vision and velocity.

Let’s unleash the leader within you.