How to Prioritize as a Growth Leader: The 5 Skills That Actually Get You Promoted
One day, the CEO walked over to my desk, sat down next to me, and said, “Andrew, I know what you’re doing - and I want you to stop.”
I still remember that moment vividly.
We hadn’t worked much together at that point. So it was a heart-racing moment at the time.
And I had no idea what I’d done wrong.
Before I started and scaled my first growth team, I was a growth marketer focused on user acquisition.
And our CEO would occasionally Slack me fun ideas he’d heard from his startup founder buddies. Tests they’d run. Changes that had moved the needle. Channels they were scaling. And things he thought we should try.
And every single time, I said:
“Yeah, great call. Adding this to our next sprint.”
I genuinely thought I was doing the right thing. I was being helpful. I was being a team player. I was supporting the execs. And I was making my bosses boss job easier.
What he told me next changed how I think about prioritization entirely:
“Your job isn’t to say yes just because I’m the CEO. My job is to bring growth ideas to the right person - that’s you. Your job is to evaluate whether it’s actually the most impactful thing to do - and say no when it’s not. I have bad ideas all the time.”
That conversation is the foundation of everything I’ve taught about prioritization since. I’ve now coached 90+ growth leaders - Directors, Heads of Growth, and VPs at startups and scale-ups - and the ones who have the most impact aren’t the ones with the best ideas. They’re the ones who know how to prioritize.
Here are the five prioritization skills that separate the growth leaders who get promoted from the ones who stay perpetually busy.
Skill 1: Get Crystal Clear on What “Good” Looks Like Right Now
Before you can prioritize effectively, you need to know what success actually looks like in your specific role - not in some abstract, career-wide sense, but right now, in the moment your company is in, with the KPIs and OKRs you’re responsible for.
This is the first thing I work on with almost every coaching client, regardless of seniority. I ask them one question: “If we fast-forward 12–18 months and you just got a massive raise and promotion because of your impact - what’s the most likely reason why? What’s the KPI you moved?”
For some, it’s acquisition. For others, retention or revenue growth. What it is doesn’t matter. Getting clear on it does. Because if it’s not clear what good looks like, it’s impossible to prioritize.
But clarity alone isn’t enough. You also need to verify it - meaning you need to check with your manager that your definition of success matches theirs. If your definitions don’t align, you can execute perfectly and still miss the mark. Worse, you’ll slowly erode trust without understanding why.
Ask your manager directly: “What would make you say this was an amazing quarter for me?” or “What are the one or two things that matter most to growing this business right now?” Once you have that alignment, prioritization gets simpler - not easy, but simpler.
Skill 2: Compare Ideas Against Each Other, Not in Isolation
Most people evaluate ideas one at a time. They see an idea and ask: “Is this good? Could this be impactful? Does it seem urgent?”
The problem: almost every idea sounds good in isolation. That’s not how prioritization works in the real world.
The right question isn’t “Is this a good idea?” It’s “Is this the best use of our time and resources right now?”
When you put ideas side by side, you force real trade-offs. Instead of asking “Could this be impactful?” ask: “Does this move our main outcome more than the other things we could be doing? And if we say yes to this, what are we explicitly saying no to?”
High-impact leaders don’t hide from trade-offs. They surface them. They say things like: “If we do this now, we’re delaying this other project.” That’s the kind of clarity that builds trust — even when people disagree with your decisions.
Skill 3: Slow Down to Reduce Bias
The biggest threat to great prioritization usually isn’t a lack of ideas or frameworks. It’s human dynamics.
Ideas from senior people carry more weight. Loud, charismatic people get more airtime. Ideas you’re personally excited about feel more compelling. None of those things mean the idea is actually better.
I’ve worked on countless projects I had enormous conviction on - only to discover later they didn’t move the needle. My excitement was there. The impact wasn’t.
High-impact growth leaders design processes that protect against these biases. In practice, this means: writing down your decision-making criteria before looking at the ideas, scoring ideas independently before group discussion, and anchoring decisions to your agreed outcomes - not to who argued most persuasively in the room.
When teams skip this step, whoever speaks loudest or carries the most seniority tends to win. When teams do it consistently, influence compounds - because decisions become predictable, transparent, and trusted.
Skill 4: Use a Specific, Repeatable Prioritization Framework
Without a system, you’ll chase whatever feels most interesting or urgent in the moment. The ideas are endless - especially at a startup. You need a framework that forces comparison and removes bias.
Two frameworks worth knowing for growth and marketing teams:
The ICE Framework
ICE stands for Impact, Confidence, and Ease. Score each idea on a 1–5 scale across all three dimensions:
• Impact: Will this meaningfully move the KPI we care about?
• Confidence: Do we have reason to believe this will work?
• Ease: How quickly can we ship this and learn if we’re right?
It’s fast, practical, and forces comparison. It’s the framework I recommend most often to the growth leaders I coach.
The Eisenhower Matrix
A classic 2x2 with importance on the vertical axis and urgency on the horizontal.
Important + urgent: do it now.
Important + not urgent: schedule it.
Not important + urgent: delegate it.
Not important + not urgent: don’t do it.
The specific framework matters less than the consistency. Teams that use the same system repeatedly learn from it, adjust over time, and build trust through predictable decision-making.
Skill 5: Learn to Say No - Clearly, Politely, and Without Guilt
If you’re prioritizing well, you’re saying no more than you’re saying yes. And that’s hard when you’ve been rewarded your whole career for saying yes.
This is where the story comes back in. His permission slip - “your job isn’t to say yes just because I’m the CEO” - is something most growth leaders never receive explicitly. They have to give it to themselves.
A few practical approaches:
• Say “not right now” instead of “no.” It’s honest and less final.
• Give the idea a visible home — a backlog, a Trello board, a parking lot. This shows you’re not dismissing it, just timing it.
• Explain the trade-off explicitly: “If we take this on, here’s what we’re delaying.” or “I love this idea, but it’s not in support of our current objectives.”
Saying yes got you to where you are. Learning to say no strategically is what gets you to the next level.
The Bottom Line on How to Prioritize as a Growth Leader
The leaders I coach who have the most impact - the ones who get promoted, build real influence with their CEO, and earn trust across their organization - aren’t the most creative or the most technically skilled. They’re the most disciplined prioritizers.
They know what good looks like. They compare ideas honestly. They protect their decisions from bias. They use a consistent framework. And they say no - clearly, kindly, and without apology.
Master these five skills and you’ll have more impact than 99% of your peers. Not because you’re working harder - but because you’re working on the right things.
Want Help Applying This to Your Situation?
If you’re a Director, Head of Growth, or VP navigating these challenges right now, this is exactly what I work on with coaching clients.
And if you found this useful, the full video breakdown of all five skills is embedded above.