Some people at work desperately need to learn where their importance starts and where it ends.
You can be very important in your role. You can be excellent at what you do. Your opinion can matter. Your experience can matter. Your concerns can matter. None of that means every piece of work that lands in front of you suddenly becomes yours to question, control or approve.
Sometimes you are simply being asked to do your part of the work.
That should not be such a difficult concept to understand.
If Capacity Is the Problem, Say It
What I find unbearable is when people receive a brief and, instead of focusing on what they need to deliver, suddenly appoint themselves as investigators of the entire strategy.
Now they want to know who is briefing what, why certain assets are required, what everybody else is doing, whether there might be repetition, what the full strategy is and why the work is needed in the first place.
At some point, you have to ask whether all these questions are genuinely about doing better work or whether people simply do not like the amount of work sitting in front of them.
If capacity is the problem, then say capacity is the problem.
It really is that simple.
Do not take your capacity problem, dress it nicely, add a few corporate words and present it as a strategy problem. Do not question another person’s work because your team is busy. Do not behave as though a business requirement becomes invalid simply because delivering it is inconvenient for you.
If you cannot meet the timelines, say that. If you do not have enough people, say that. If there is too much work, say that. If priorities need to be discussed, take that conversation to the people responsible for priorities and resources.
Those are real problems. They can be discussed like adults.
What you do not get to do is decide that somebody else’s work must suddenly become smaller because your workload is uncomfortable.
You Are Important Where You Are Important
This is where people need to learn that they are important where they are important.
You have a role. So does everybody else.
If you are responsible for execution, then your knowledge of execution matters. If something cannot be done, explain why. If the format will not work, say so. If you need more information to complete the work, ask for it. If the deadline genuinely cannot be met, raise it. If you have a better way of delivering the same objective, suggest it.
That is collaboration.
But questioning whether somebody else’s strategy should exist because you do not like what it requires from you is not collaboration.
It is overstepping.
And calling it collaboration does not magically make it collaboration.
Not Everything Needs to Become a Debate
There is also this strange habit in some workplaces where people seem to think that if they push back hard enough, eventually the work will disappear.
A brief comes in and suddenly everything needs to become a debate. Then it needs a meeting. Then another person needs to join the meeting. Then somebody senior needs to understand the ask. Then the strategy needs to be explained again. Then everyone needs visibility of what everyone else is doing.
For what?
At what point are we actually going to do the work?
Not everything requires a meeting. Not every request requires a committee. Not every person needs visibility of everything happening in the business before they can perform their own role.
Sometimes you have enough information. You just do not like the answer.
There is a difference.
And sometimes the person giving you the brief has already compromised. They have already changed the approach. They have already reduced the frequency. They have already combined work that was originally meant to be separated. They have already tried to make things easier.
If the complaints continue after that, then perhaps the brief was never the real problem.
Perhaps the real problem is that some people simply do not like receiving work they did not personally design.
That is an ego problem.
Nobody Owes You Control
Nobody owes you ownership of work simply because you are involved in delivering it.
Nobody owes you control over another person’s strategy.
Nobody owes you a full explanation of every conversation happening around a project just so that you can feel comfortable doing your part.
And nobody owes you an easy workload every day of your working life.
Work gets busy. Campaigns overlap. Deadlines collide. Different departments have different priorities. Sometimes somebody else’s urgent requirement creates pressure for your team.
That is the reality of working inside a business with multiple functions.
You are allowed to say that the pressure is too much.
You are allowed to escalate capacity.
You are allowed to ask your manager to help prioritise.
What you are not entitled to do is make yourself everybody else’s problem because you are under pressure.
Toxicity Does Not Always Look Like Shouting
That behaviour becomes toxic very quickly.
And workplace toxicity is not always someone screaming across an office or openly insulting people. Sometimes it is much quieter than that.
Sometimes it is the person who makes every simple task unnecessarily difficult. It is the person who constantly pushes back. It is the person who turns every brief into an interrogation. It is the person who demands meetings instead of making decisions.
It is the person who creates delays and then complains about timelines.
It is the person who constantly needs other people to prove why their work matters.
It is the person who believes their department’s inconvenience should automatically become everybody else’s emergency.
It is exhausting.
Being Difficult Does Not Make You Powerful
Worse, these people sometimes confuse being difficult with being powerful.
They believe that because work cannot move without endless conversations with them, this proves how important they are.
It does not.
Sometimes it simply means you are a bottleneck.
There is nothing impressive about being the reason straightforward work takes twice as long. There is nothing powerful about making people dread sending something to your team. There is nothing professional about turning normal requests into battles.
And there is nothing clever about creating unnecessary problems and then sitting in meetings discussing how those problems should be solved.
You are not demonstrating your value. You are demonstrating how difficult you are to work with.
Those are not the same thing.
Good People to Work With Get Things Done
Good people to work with do not need to make everybody else’s life miserable to prove that they matter.
They know their work. They know their boundaries. They ask the right questions. They challenge things when there is a genuine reason to challenge them. They give advice when their expertise is needed. They say when something cannot be done and explain why.
Then they get on with the work.
That is professionalism.
What is not professional is behaving as though every request must pass your personal test before it deserves to exist.
Other People Know Their Jobs Too
This sentence apparently needs to be printed and stuck on a few office walls:
Other people know their jobs too.
The strategist knows their strategy. The designer knows design. The developer knows development. The project manager knows delivery. The merchandiser knows merchandise. The analyst knows the data. The channel owner knows their channel.
You are not the only competent person in the building.
You are not the only person under pressure.
You are not the only person with deadlines.
You are not the only person whose work matters.
And the business does not stop at the border of your department.
Know Where Your Chair Is
That is why knowing where you are important matters.
Be important there.
Be brilliant there.
Own that space.
Speak loudly when something genuinely falls within your expertise. Protect the quality of your work. Challenge bad decisions that directly affect your ability to deliver. Raise real risks. Push back when something is genuinely impossible.
But stop dragging your chair into everybody else’s lane because you need to feel important in every conversation.
Sometimes your job is not to approve.
Sometimes your job is not to decide.
Sometimes your job is not to understand every moving part.
Sometimes your job is simply to take the requirement, apply your expertise and deliver your part properly.
That does not make you less important. It means you understand how teams work.
Call the Problem What It Is
If the real problem is that you do not have capacity, have enough courage to call it what it is.
Say:
“We do not have capacity.”
That is an honest conversation.
Do not hide behind strategy. Do not hide behind process. Do not hide behind the need for alignment. Do not manufacture concerns about repetition when the real concern is workload. Do not drag people into unnecessary meetings because you hope enough resistance will eventually make the requirement disappear.
And please stop expecting other people to keep shrinking their responsibilities until they fit comfortably inside yours.
The world does not owe you that.
Neither do your colleagues.
We all have jobs to do.
Do yours.
Be good at it.
Be respected for it.
But understand that being important does not mean being important everywhere.
Because once you start believing that nothing should move unless you understand it, approve it or agree with it, you have stopped being a helpful part of the process.
You have become the problem in the process.
