Every June/July companies schedule their half-year reviews. The leadership team gets together to review revenue vs target, headcount vs budget and sales pipeline vs forecast.
All of this is undoubtedly important to review and to makes reviews more impactful, I would suggest adding an additional factor: How did we lead that allowed us to get to these numbers.
It’s important because 6 months is exactly enough time for a
leader to drift a long way from where they intended to be in January. There isn’t a single dramatic moment when it
happens, it’s a slow drift.
The Drift
Nobody wakes up and just decides to become reactive again. It happens one moment at a time:
A fire needs putting out, so you take care of it instead of coaching
someone else to do it.
A conversation feels difficult, so it gets pushed back to “when things calm down.”
You say yes to something because saying no in the moment
feels like more friction than saying yes was worth.
Each of these decisions seemed reasonable at the time, but as they build up over 6 months, they become a pattern, and that pattern is usually the opposite of the leader you want to be.
This might be way so many leaders feel tired by mid-year. It’s not quite feeling burnt out, but it’s a feeling of being worn down by the gap between the leadership they intended and the leadership they’ve been running on. They are technically getting things done, but it’s in a reactive way rather than an intentional way.
Earlier this year, I worked with a leader who described their first half of the year as “fine, just full.” Six months into the year, and nothing was wrong on paper. They were meeting targets, the team hadn’t lost anyone, and no crisis made it to the board. But, when we sat together and mapped out how they spent their leadership energy (not their calendar, their energy) if was a different picture. The leader had taken responsibility for a conflict between peers instead of coaching these peers to resolve them directly. The leader had told themselves that they would deal with a chronic under-performer after the next deadline, and there were always new deadlines. So, while nothing at the half-year review captured all of this, it was still shaping who they were becoming as a leader.
This is the gap this blog is about: a leadership gap. Now, at half-year, is a natural moment to
recognise it before it becomes the pattern for how you operate for the rest of
the year.
Three Questions to Ask
If you want an honest review of how you’ve led so far this year, ask yourself 3 questions:
Where have I been the bottleneck? Where has work queued up behind you specifically? What has been waiting for your input, your approval or your availability because delegation stopped somewhere along the line?
What have I been avoiding? Have there been conversations you haven’t had yet, or decisions that you haven’t made yet because it doesn’t feel like the right time?
What am I still doing that someone else should be doing by now? This is the question leaders resist the most, because the things we hold on to the longest are usually the things we’re good at, not the thing we should be carrying.
Intentional Isn’t the Same as Being Busy
I want to be direct about something because I see this confusion in leaders constantly: being busy is not the same as being intentional.
A leader who is copied on every e-mail, pulled into every escalation, and who is the first to respond looks indispensable. It also reflects a leader and a system that hasn’t built the structures for anyone else to share the load.
Intentional leadership on the other hand, looks like a leader who has said no to things that are not priority, who has had the difficult conversations timeously, and who can empower their team to be involved and resolve crises.
I know that stepping back feels like giving up control and
risking a loss of visibility.
Intentional leadership asks you to trade that sense of control for a
less visible impact: a team that can function without you. Most leaders I work with know intellectually
that this trade off is worth making and not all of them are ready to do so.
How You Could Re-Set
As you re-set for the second half of the year, include behavioural targets to your numerical targets.
Pick one thing from the 3 questions above and make a specific intentional change to it. It doesn’t have to the biggest item on the list. Pick one thing that you can easily change in the next few weeks to help you build your confidence and create momentum.
I would also suggest that you do this reflection with someone else – a peer, a mentor or a coach. Ask them to keep you honest and accountable.
If this resonated with you.
I’d appreciate hearing what your mid-year review shows. And, if you want a structured way to work
through it, get in touch. These are the
types of conversations I have with clients every day.