Prioritize before pressure forces the decision
Tight timelines and high pressure define the world we work in. Program leaders operate in environments where delivery risk increases quickly and visibility intensifies just as fast.
strong leadership starts before that pressure hits.
Before you run into trouble, you have to stop and look hard at your scope—and then prioritize it. This is where Agile aligns naturally with strong leadership. The discipline is the same whether you’re working in sprints, increments, or more traditional planning cycles.
Review the backlog. See what’s already in progress. Make priority decisions proactively. Don’t let pressure make those decisions for you.
When delivery risk increases, prioritization suddenly feels easy. A skill gap appears. Something takes longer than expected. A dependency slips. At that moment, the answer is usually obvious: count. The highest-priority item gets the attention, the people, and the resources.
The problem is that many programs wait until that moment to decide.
In a program environment, prioritization is even more critical. Projects often compete for the same constrained resources—hardware, software environments, subject-matter experts, key engineers. When priorities aren’t clear, teams stall while work queues up behind artificial urgency.
My philosophy has always been that decisions should be made by the people closest to the issue. When teams have clear priorities in front of them, they don’t need escalation to know where resources should go. They can make the call, keep work moving, and reduce delivery risk in real time.
Callout
When everything is priority one, nothing is.
Prioritizing business functionality is hard. It requires uncomfortable conversations and explicit trade-offs. Avoiding those conversations doesn’t remove the risk—it delays the decision. And delayed decisions become reactive, obvious, and expensive.
strong leadership means having the prioritization conversation early. When delivery risk increases, the team already knows what matters most—and can act without panic.
When it worked (and when it didn’t)
Some people might immediately say, “This sounds too easy.” But I’ve seen it work.
When it worked
I was once part of a large design effort that touched nearly every part of the system—initial record entry, record processing, downstream financial transactions, and more. Competing priorities were everywhere. Instead of pretending everything was equally important, leadership made a deliberate choice: at every increment, we stopped and reprioritized the work across teams.
Two project managers escalated a conflict over people. The program-level response was simple: “Count.” The priorities were already clear. When they looked at the list, the answer was obvious. One project was higher. The other was second.
No one liked being second—but everyone understood why. Because the decision was grounded in visible priorities, there was no lingering resentment. Work moved forward.
When it didn’t
On another large effort, prioritization never really happened. Work was kicked off broadly, and teams were told to “modernize and execute.” Without clear priorities, a lot of lower-value work got done. Activity was high, but impact was low. The organization never realized the return on investment it was expecting.
What made this especially hard was the aftermath. Even though key goals were missed and ROI wasn’t achieved, some senior leaders were still promoted. For the people doing the work, that was deeply discouraging.
That’s the cost of avoiding prioritization.
When leaders don’t make hard priority decisions early, they push those decisions onto teams under pressure. And when outcomes fall short, credibility erodes—not just in the program, but in leadership itself.
strong leadership isn’t about reacting well when things go wrong. It’s about creating clarity early, so teams don’t pay the price later.
Aviate • Navigate • Communicate
This approach works well when you’re proactive and have time to prioritize. But what about the moments you didn’t plan for?
In those situations, I often think about advice from a friend of mine who is a retired Navy Captain. Navy aviators live by a simple phrase: Aviate. Navigate. Communicate.
A powerful example shows up in Sully (2016), which tells the story of Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger safely landing US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in 2009, saving all 155 people on board.
When the bird strike shut down both engines, Sully didn’t panic or try to solve everything at once. He acknowledged a simple truth: the plane still needed to be flown. He told First Officer Jeffrey Bruce “Jeff” Skiles that he was taking control of the aircraft.
First priority
Keeping the aircraft in the air was the first priority.
By taking control, Sully focused entirely on flying the plane, while Skiles focused on the engine restart checklist. Each professional did what they were trained to do. They didn’t overlap responsibilities. They communicated clearly, but control stayed with the person executing the task.
The same principle applies when a project hits something it didn’t account for. Your first responsibility as a leader is to keep the work moving forward. That means trusting the expertise of the people on your team and letting them “aviate” in their space.
I’ve had the privilege of working with some exceptionally skilled people. Part of what made them great was that I trusted them to make the right decisions when things got difficult. Allowing people to focus on their area of expertise has consistently helped teams recover faster when unexpected risks surface.
Why communication comes last
I’ve always found it interesting that the last step is communicate.
In project management, we’re constantly told to communicate, communicate, communicate. But communication takes focus and energy away from the first two steps: aviate and navigate.
Do you want the team explaining the issue—or fixing it?
After Sully declares, “Mayday, Mayday,” the control tower doesn’t immediately demand constant updates. They wait. They understand the pilot’s focus must remain on flying the aircraft. Communication happens when it matters—not continuously.
Model
Communicate the issue. Communicate the plan. Say what you’re going to do—then do it.
Anything beyond that becomes noise.
strong leadership isn’t about constant status updates. It’s about trusting professionals to aviate in their space, giving them room to navigate toward a safe outcome, and communicating with intent—not urgency for its own sake.
Closing thought
strong leadership isn’t about having all the answers or reacting faster than everyone else. It’s about making priorities clear before pressure forces the decision, trusting professionals to do the work they’re trained to do, and communicating with purpose when it matters most. When leaders create clarity early, teams don’t panic when risk shows up—they move. And in high-pressure moments, that quiet, deliberate motion is often the difference between a hard landing and a safe one.