An Annual Leadership Discipline to Improve Performance. (#230)

The Confident Leader

BOOST YOUR LEADERSHIP IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

At the end of every year, I do this one thing that makes all the difference in how I remember what happened over the year AND prepares me to improve my performance in the coming twelve months. I’m happy to share it with you today.

“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” 

– George Santayana (Spanish American philosopher)

This Week’s Edition

Do you remember what happened this year? Did you learn anything? Do you remember what you learned? 

Clarify Your Thinking

I’ve experienced that, in some instances, leaders dread the coming year. They may be smarting from the memory of the prior year’s challenges and are keenly aware that they do not desire to repeat some of the experiences of the year they just completed.

With those leaders, our coaching conversation reveals that their future is squarely in their hands. This means that even if the variables in your life are not changing, you can change. You can have a dramatically different experience. You are not doomed to repeat history. Learn from it. Change your thinking. Make different choices. Get different results.

Old Thinking: Just because the year is new doesn’t mean my circumstances are different. I am still dealing with lingering challenges that are spilling over. I doubt this year will be much different. 

New Thinking: The new year allows me to pause, reflect, and realize what I experienced. Perhaps those experiences and how I handled them have some instructional value. Maybe I learned some things I want to bring forward into this new year. 

Thoughts Lead to Actions

Twelve months is a long time. A lot can happen. A lot can be forgotten. If all we do is look forward, hoping for a better future, we might overlook some hard-fought wisdom on the battlefield of our leadership. This may cause us to risk repeating old mistakes and result in having to learn tough lessons again and again.

Let’s interrupt that frustrating pattern and employ a new strategy to affect our desired results in the coming year. 

Counterintuitively, we would benefit from going backward to go forward into the new year. Reflecting on what you’ve experienced will help you navigate what’s ahead of you. 

If you’ve learned something from past challenges, remembering that lesson and adding it to your leadership toolbox will equip you for similar challenges in the future. 

Here is an easy (and dare I say fun) way to reflect on the prior year that will allow you to collect the wisdom you’ve earned through the experiences you had in 2024.

Step 1: Assemble the pertinent information:

• Your calendar (month by month)
• Your camera roll (starting in January)
• Your financial data (P&L or check register)

Step 2: Review January, making a list of notable things that occurred: 

• Calendar: notable activities and events
• Camera: pictures remind you of what happened in that month
• Finance: revenue, expenses, investments, milestones

Step 3: After repeating Step 2 for each month, review your notes. Ask yourself:

• What trends and patterns do you notice?
• What were your highlights? Lowlights?
• What are the top five “lessons” you learned?
• What do you want to keep doing? Stop doing? Start doing?

This posture of reflection allows you to glean valuable information that will inform both what you want to accomplish and how you want to approach those desired results. Happy New Year! 

Boost Your Performance

Watch this week’s video for more details on this annual reflection exercise.

What’s Your Opinion?

Let us know what you learned by doing this annual exercise. Share it with me at robin.pou@robinpou.com

If you are going to be a leader, you might as well be a good one. Don’t let doubt count you out. Have a confident week!

Robin Pou, Chief Advisor and Strategist

We live to make bad leadership extinct so forward this newsletter to others who strive to be confident leaders. 

SUBSCRIBE TO THE CONFIDENT LEADER

Let’s Connect

Follow me on Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter.

What is “The Confident Leader”?

During the Covid-19 Pandemic, I began a video series called “Panic or Plan?” It was designed to equip leaders to navigate the doubt they experienced and to rise in the confidence they needed to lead during turbulent times. It took off. I then started this newsletter to equip leaders in the same fashion each week for the doubt that crashes across the bow of their leaderSHIP.