EXECUTIVE RESET
CHAPTER I
The biggest CEO lie: “We don't have time for strategy right now.”
The White Rabbit and the eternal “not now”
It always begins beautifully. Because fairy tales are always beautiful. And this one is about Alice in the enchanted land of the boardroom.
Alice sits upright at the table. With a vision that is fresh and bold. With energy that electrifies the team. Big words are spoken: “scaling”, “new model”, “next level”, “priorities”. People talk about the future. About transformation. About courage. And for a moment everyone truly believes that now we will finally pull the lever. Alice feels that moment of power, too. The kind of tension that says: now we are really starting to play in a higher league. A new chapter begins.
Except that in the corner of the room there is a mirror. An enchanted one.
And suddenly the White Rabbit dashes across the room.
“We're late! We're late! Q3 is on fire! Cash flow! A key client has said no! Where's the target? … Transformation later!”
So what happens? Without much thought: we act! And everyone jumps up from their seats! Someone opens a dashboard. Someone raises their voice. Someone runs to sales. Alice runs, too.
Vision gives way to urgency.
Because first we have to deliver. First we have to put out the fire. First we have to react. And then, quietly, without making it into the minutes, a sentence is born: “I don't have time for strategy right now.” It is not said out loud. But it starts steering decisions. After all, it is so obvious that fires have to be put out.
Except that this is yet another of the White Rabbit's fires.
What's more, our White Rabbit is very fast, almost impossible to catch. It is an eternal alarm. Eternal urgency. Eternal reaction. And of course, every time it sounds rational. Every time there is no other choice. Because there isn't.
Operational mode becomes the everyday.
I hear this sentence often: “We don't have time for strategy right now. We have a fire.” And every time I know one thing - the fire is rarely where the finger is pointing. The result - the strategy stays on a slide, because now is not the right moment. The White Rabbit is always right. And so ... a quarter goes by. Then a year.
Let's walk up to the mirror with Alice. Because as she was running, she glanced into it for a moment. What does she see?
On this side, she sees a CEO in action. A firefighter. Reacting. Getting into operations. Solving. She will deliver - how could she not? It looks rational. It sounds mature. Better still, it sounds responsible. Yes, that is me. I am bursting with pride; it is good that I am ready. Right here, on the spot.
And now let's take a closer look… what is there on the other side of the mirror? Something strange appears there, slightly uncomfortable… Alice sees a leader who is afraid of no longer being needed… Why? Where does this shadow come from? Thoughts appear, as if out of nowhere: “I'm afraid to hand over the helm”, “I'm afraid someone will do it differently”, “I'm afraid I will no longer be the central figure”, “I'm afraid that without my ‘OK’ it will all fall apart.” Alice chases these thoughts away. Where did they come from? They are not mine. I am doing what needs to be done.
Why doesn't Alice look there any longer? Because firefighting gives an immediate reward: control. And we do not like losing control.
Building a system requires giving up control. And this is where many CEOs really stop. Because if I stop being the operator… then who will I be?
At my leadership talks, I pull a question out of a hat:
🔥 “Who here is operationally irreplaceable?”
Almost every hand goes up, right? Proudly. With the conviction that this is, after all, proof of our value. And then I pull a second question out of the hat:
🔥 “And who here thinks that is a compliment?”
Now there is silence, right? Because we can already sense that it is not a compliment.
🔥Yes, it is not a compliment; it is a warning sign.
And the third, the hardest one:
🔥 “Who here would like their company to work just as well without them?”
This is where real reflection begins. Because those of us who love this work “wrestle” with the shadow in the mirror every day.
And this is not a fairy tale about bad people. It is a fairy tale about strong people who sometimes mistake movement for direction.
Busy ≠ leadership.
The greatest moment of leadership is not the one in which you take control.
It is the one in which you consciously hand it over.
And the question I leave you with, like a mirror:
Do you really not have time for strategy?
Or are you afraid to see who you will be when you stop being a firefighter?
(Because the Rabbit is usually followed by another mechanism: power, silence and decisions that come at a cost.)
CHAPTER III
The Queen of Hearts and the fear of losing your head
In Wonderland, power is simple. The Queen of Hearts does not analyse for long. She does not debate, because there is really no one to debate with. She does not ask about alignment, because why collect feedback if the decision has already been made?
She decides.
Her strength does not lie in shouting. It lies in the fact that everyone wants to survive the meeting at her table. Sometimes out of convenience. “Let's do it the old way; it'll be quiet.” Sometimes out of helplessness. “Why get involved? She won't listen anyway.”
Silence is not neutral. It is a decision about culture.
Alice watches from the side. No one raises their voice. No one says outright that something is not working.
No one risks a strong, dissenting view. The silence is civil. Polite. Professional... And dangerous. You ask why?
Because in the executive world, the most dangerous conflicts do not explode. They dissolve in politeness: “Let's give this project time”, “Let's not make any sudden moves,” “Let's not destabilise the team.” And once again that sentence is spoken, only in a different version: “This is not the moment.”
The higher you are, the fewer people tell you honestly that you are wrong. And at the same time, the more people depend on your decision.
Empathy without boundaries is not empathy. It is the collapse of standards.
And this is where a mechanism begins that is far more subtle than authoritarianism. If you care too much about everyone feeling safe, you will start putting off difficult moves. If you care too much about harmony, you will start tolerating a failure to deliver.
Except that tension does not disappear when you do not name it. It seeps into the system. The team starts learning that standards are ‘flexible’. The management board starts playing without real accountability. Priorities start to be ‘negotiable’. And strategy starts to be wishful thinking.
Mature power costs you popularity.
Alice begins to understand something else. Power in Wonderland is not about who shouts the loudest. It is about who has the courage to be disliked, to stick their neck out, to say stop, let's do it differently, because the fire is somewhere else. Not in order to dominate. In order to take responsibility.
The Queen of Hearts was not cruel because she made decisions. She was cruel when she decided out of ‘ego’. A mature CEO does not decide out of ego. They decide out of responsibility. That is a huge difference. And a huge weight...
The price of decisions is loneliness.
“Can you make a decision that costs you people's goodwill?”
Most leaders say: of course. And then comes the moment when you have to close a project, hold a board member who has been there “for years” to account, cut a segment that once made the company proud, or say “no” to the board.
And suddenly it turns out that being decisive is one thing, and being alone with that decision is “a whole other story”.
Strategy does not die in the market. It dies at your table.
Alice knows that if she stops running now, someone will say: “She's lost touch with reality.” And a fear of losing authority appears, stronger than the need for reflection.
The Queen of Hearts looks her in the eye and asks: Do you want to be effective or liked? This question hangs over every leader for longer than anyone will admit out loud. Because if you cannot be disliked, you cannot be truly responsible. And then strategy does not die in the market. It dies at your table.
CHAPTER V
Silence on the other side of the mirror
At some point, the fairy tale stops being colourful. The Rabbits disappear. The Hatter falls silent. The cards stop being a metaphor. What remains is the mirror. And it no longer reflects the scenery, only the person.
Alice stands in front of it in the evening, when everyone has already left. The office is empty, the lights are dimmed, tomorrow's calendar is full as usual. This silence is thick. No one wants anything. No one is calling. No one is waiting for an immediate decision. But tomorrow's calendar is as full as ever. This silence is “thick”. And it is precisely this silence that is the most uncomfortable. Silence exposes what movement so effectively masked.
Because when you stop running, you start seeing more.
You see fatigue that for years was called “ambition”.
You see tension that pretended to be “responsibility”.
You see control dressed up as a “quality standard”.
And you see fear, not of failure, but of losing your identity.
For years, Alice was the one who knew. She reacted faster. Her value was tied to movement, decisions, being at the centre. Now she is beginning to understand: real change is not about the business model. It is about her.
Strategy begins where ego ends.
Strategy does not begin with a roadmap. It begins with accepting that not everything has to go through you. With recognising that your intelligence is not an argument against building someone else's. With deciding that you stop being the hero of the story and start being the architect of the system.
It is a harder moment than closing a project, because it is the moment of saying “no” to your own ego.
In the mirrors of Wonderland there are no filters. No self-promotion. There is a question that comes back like an echo:
who are you when no one needs your immediate reaction?
The world will not slow down. AI is accelerating. Markets are shortening cycles.
A leader can no longer be the best specialist in the room. They have to be the one who chooses, cuts, delegates and trusts.
Busy ≠ leadership.
Movement is not direction. Activity is not impact.
A mature CEO does not work more. They work at a higher level.
From firefighter to architect. From reaction to design. From control to responsibility.
And only then does real strategy begin.
CHAPTER VI
The mirror. 10 questions you can no longer run from.
Stand in front of your mirror now. Not the one in the office. The one at 6:00 in the morning.
At CEO level, you are no longer just a leader. You are a system.
Your habits scale. Your decisions scale. Your blind spots scale fastest of all.
- Is my “lack of time for strategy” a fact… or a way of avoiding handing over the helm?
- Am I putting out market fires… or fires that keep my management style alive?
- Is my operational indispensability proof of strength… or of dependency instead of a system?
- Do I delegate decisions, or only tasks that come back for my “OK” anyway?
- Does the silence on my board mean agreement… or convenience, or perhaps resignation and polite fear?
- Can I make a decision that costs me goodwill before the price is paid by the company's future?
- Who am I as a CEO when I am not a firefighter, and can the company function without my immediate reaction?
- Which assumption in my head is “obvious”… and might have been out of date for a long time?
- Who at this table stays silent, and what would they say if they were not afraid of the consequences?
- What culture am I rewarding with today's decision, and who will pay for it in 12 months?
These are not motivational questions. They are systemic questions.
EPILOGUE
If you feel a sting reading this, good. Not because “something is wrong with you”. But because these are human reactions to pressure, pace and the loneliness of decision-making.
Mine. Yours.
The White Rabbit is not a “bad habit”. It is a survival mechanism.
The Queen of Hearts is not a lack of empathy. It is fear of the price of a decision.
And you know what? It happens to the best of us. To us.
Because at CEO level, the strongest traits - speed, agency, control, charisma - can at some point start working against strategy and against you.
The key is not to “fix yourself”.
The key is to stop.
To stand at the mirror. To see what is really driving your movement.
And to choose not another sprint, but the next level of maturity.
Because strategy does not begin when you have more time. It begins when you have the courage to regain your direction.
Before you speed up - pause wisely.
PS. And if you feel that something is missing here…
You are right; this is a shortened version of the fairy tale.
The full story is coming soon in the book: Baśnie 1000 strategii i 1 lidera (Tales of 1000 Strategies and 1 Leader)😉.
And if you would like to hear this fairy tale live - that is exactly what I do.
If you want to go a step beyond reflection, I work with leaders and teams on exactly this topic. I give talks and run workshops for CEOs and the C-suite on moving from operational hero to system architect: how to stop buying peace of mind with control and start building a strategy that works.
Write to me. Let's see what in your system is calling for change.
SEE BEYOND. LEAD
Clarity before speed.
