There's another position that's similar but less gross, which is to have some humility about what you think is important vs. what work your manager/manager's manager think is important. Try to work on what they think is important not (just) because of a cynical desire to game the system and get ahead, but because they have probably more experience and (often a lot more) context than you do.
Of course, this only works if you have managers you feel like you can trust and respect in the first place.
That's definitely true too. There's a lot of developers who spend way more time beautifying code than they actually do driving the business. While sometimes great code leads to great business results, that's not a law of nature. The inverse and converse can certainly be true too.
Spot on. Most organizations spend time on how to do thinks than actually doing it. What i found out was to get some data as soon as possible, even if it has large caveats. That is more important than getting it right, becaude you wont.
Of course, this only works if you have managers you feel like you can trust and respect in the first place.