12 PRACTICAL STEPS TO MAKE THE MOST OF THE NEXT FEW WEEKS (PART 2 of 2)

8 min readDec 5, 2024

As you stare down what is a short runway to the end of the year, here are some opportunities for you to show up the way you would like to, accomplish what you need to, and set yourself up for a moving start in 2025.

Based on what I am hearing from my clients and colleagues, it has been a big year so far. With plenty more to come…after all we are in the marathon of leadership.

So how will you keep up this pace, keep serving and leading into the future?

This is the second, and final, instalment of my 12 Rs to help you coach yourself to success.

You can read part 1 here.

Choose any one or more of these 12Rs to support your ongoing leadership of self.

7. REFOCUS

What is the narrative for your leadership in this time?

What do you want to be most proud of at the end of this period?

Imagine that you could overhear a conversation between your peers, team members, stakeholders, or your manager at the end of this period of time. What do you want them to be saying about you and your leadership?

Questions for your self-coaching:

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, how happy are you with your leadership narrative right now?
What are the things you would like to develop and/or change about your leadership of self, tribe, and world?
What can you do to make these happen?
In your role as a leader, what are you doing now that you should not be?

(If you have completed the 3Rs activity from part 1, this will provide great context to answer this question.)

What aren’t you doing now, that you should be?

“

It’s only by saying NO that you concentrate on the things that are really important.

~ Steve Jobs

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Options for you to consider:

▸Choose one thing about your leadership you would like to develop and focus on this first. Build from there.

8. RESIST

This is about focus. Avoiding all the bright shiny objects and ensuring that you focus on the things that make a difference and add value.

Questions for your self-coaching:

What is the most important thing you need to do right now?
From your roadmap exercise in part 1– what were your top 3 priorities for the next 3 months?

“

The main thing is to keep the main thing a main thing.

~ Stephen R Covey

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Options for you to consider:

▸Great leaders stick specifically and only to the important, rather than being caught up in busy work

▸Clearly identify for yourself the top 3 to 5 things that are important in your leadership role in the coming period.

▸Use the TMM (Time Management Matrix) as a way to determine where you are focusing your time and energy versus where you could be focusing your time and energy. Then challenge yourself to operate in the top half, only on the important.

9. RECYCLE

No throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This is about identifying what is useful and valuable and reusing it. It is easy in tough times to say nothing is working…that doesn’t make it true. Bring yourself above the line and use a different perspective to assess what is really going on.

Questions for your self-coaching:

What worked in the current period ?
How can I keep it working in the next period?
How can I sustain the conditions to support it?
How can I protect what is working, so it keeps working?

Options for you to consider:

▸What is the best practice opportunity here?

▸Would my tribe benefit from knowing this?

▸What can I do to share best practice?

10. RECONNECT

Loss of connection between teams and their leaders has been one key impact of the COVID pandemic and subsequent shift to working from home. Equally though this can happen during any significant period of change. When you are focused on big important things, it can consume your attention and energy. And sometime other things slip down your priority list. Things like your level of communication with the people around you, relationships, active networking and so on.

People operate best when they feel well supported and connected. They are more engaged, motivated, productive, and higher performing. And you and your team are no exception.

Questions for your self-coaching:

How connected do I feel right now?
How connected to me do my team feel right now?
How connected do I feel to my broader network…those people outside your immediate team and organisation?
How supported am I feeling?
What impact is this having on me?
What impact is this having on my leadership?
How visible am I to my team?
What impact is this having on my team and their performance?

Options for you to consider:

▸Visible leadership creates trust. As a leader when you have trust with your team, they will engage and participate, which leads to higher performance. What is the opportunity here for you to become more visible for your team, wherever you are all working?

▸How are you prioritising the people aspects of leadership?

▸How, and how often, are you focused on things like:

Regular feedback
1 on 1’s with your direct reports
Career conversations
Communication to your broader team
Team meetings with purpose
Leadership Team meetings with purpose

▸How connected are you and your team to the priorities and purpose of your organisation? What can you do to elevate that?

“

The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

~ Colin Powell

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11. RECALIBRATE

As you move into a new period of activity it is important to check in from time to time that you and your team are doing the right things in the right way, at the right time. Continuing to operate at pace without this kind of calibration means you run the risk of putting a lot of energy and effort into things that are not creating the right outcomes. And missing the opportunity to correct your course and make sure you and your team are heading towards your target.

You can recalibrate:

at the end of a period, eg a quarter, end of financial year
after delivery of a major milestone or project, and
shortly after initiating a new activity, project, opportunity …to make sure your start-up has activated the right things, in the right way and with the right resources.

Questions for your self-coaching:

What is working?
What is not working?
What could be improved?
What could be changed?
What have we learned?
What do we need to do differently?
What will make it possible?

“

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.”

~ Zig Ziglar

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12. RELEVANCE

This is about staying strategic when you have so much going on. How will you keep yourself, your team, and your business relevant, making a difference and adding value in our changing world? To stay relevant, you need to maintain focus on your horizon.

Options for you to consider:

▸Create your own data and insights by asking the right questions.

Questions like:

What do we need to be able to do?
What do we need to be able to deliver?
What do our customers need? And so on….

This is about identifying functional capability needs.

▸You need to be regularly identifying the capability gap between your current team and what you need from your team in future. This helps your planning and development.

▸Have a specific focus on Capability development for your team.

▸Focus on your own Personal learning. What is your capability gap between where you are and where you need to be as a leader in future? You need a development plan for yourself.

▸Create personal accountability for professional development within your team.

▸Leverage mentoring and coaching to develop your people and yourself.

There is plenty of opportunity to optimise your leadership of self.
I suggest choosing one area of focus from these 12 Rs that will support you, your leadership and the difference you can make.

I’d love to know your thoughts.

p.s. Read Part 1 of 12 PRACTICAL STEPS TO MAKE THE MOST OF THE NEXT FEW WEEKS

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