How Great Leaders Finish The Year

For us it’s the last office week of the year (where did 2019 go?!) and most of Amicus’s Leaders have had their 1:1 conversation with their team members this month. But, if they haven’t, it’s not too late and these are my final call outs to them. Sharing these with Leaders everywhere though so we can all try to get end of year right, together.

• Share the emails you will and won’t read this week – Please don’t have your team frantically fanging out work for you if you’re not going to look at it till 2020. Ask them what they’re working on and re-set the due date if you’re not going to look at it this year.
• Review 2019 as a motivation driver - Why would someone invest time coming up with (and striving for) great things in 2020 if history tells them their Leader rarely checks in to review their progress? Review 2019, even if it’s just briefly.
• Make some New Year’s Resolutions - If you were the Leader that missed a few 1:1 monthly check-ins with your team in 2019, my thoughts are you should acknowledge that wasn’t great to each of your team members before you head off for 2020. And, commit to making next year a different story.
• Review 2019 to teach people more about themselves – Give your people the development opportunity to learn more about their strengths and areas of improvement through their successes and challenges, as you debrief 2019 (2 birds, 1 stone!).
• Review 2019 to teach you about you – How have you put your learnings from your companies Leadership Development program into practice? To what standard were your Coaching efforts? To what standard were your Feedback efforts? And, so on.
• Don’t ruin Christmas – If you are disappointed with performance (note: Captain Obvious alert for what comes next) this is not a great conversation to have before saying Merry Christmas and see you next year. If it can wait till 2020, wait till 2020.

I know the above is what we already know, but often this last week of the year is go-go-go and the tasks get the focus and the people don’t. So, my final thought is: is it really fair to send people into their well earned break with radio silence from their Leader? Review 2019, thank each of your team members personally, and wish them a safe and restful break. This helps send people off for the year with 2019 closure to rest and recharge, which I’m sure they deserve.