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Leading Through Q4: Strategies for the Finish Line

As we enter the year’s final quarter, it’s time to reflect, refocus, and set the course for a strong finish. Great leadership is about both vision and action—holding ourselves accountable for the goals set this year and purposefully leading our teams to success.

With Q4 upon us, let’s concentrate on aligning priorities, making the necessary adjustments, and driving the results that matter most before year-end.

Q4 Intentionality: Reflect, Refocus, and Recharge

• Reflect on Q3 successes and challenges. What went well, and where must you adapt to finish the year strong?
• Set clear, focused objectives for the next three months that align with your vision and empower your team.
• Use this moment to recharge your leadership approach—what mindset will serve your team best in this final stretch?

 

Leadership Accountability at Its Core

Creating a culture of accountability is essential for effective leadership, especially during high-stakes times like Q4. Accountability is more than assigning tasks; it’s about fostering a mindset where every team member takes ownership of their responsibilities. When everyone understands their role and how it aligns with the broader vision, it drives engagement, clarity, and purpose.

One way to reinforce this culture is by defining clear projects and establishing accountability structures that leave no room for ambiguity. By setting specific objectives with clearly defined owners and measurable outcomes, leaders can ensure that each team member knows what success looks like and what they need to do to achieve it. This clarity is the cornerstone of a culture where accountability is embraced and practiced daily.

As we move into Q4, it’s crucial to double down on key metrics that will define success for the quarter. Aligning these metrics across the leadership team ensures that all efforts are synchronized, making progress consistent and measurable. This collective focus drives results and helps identify gaps early, allowing for quick course corrections. When accountability becomes a shared value, it sets a strong foundation for achieving goals and motivates the entire team to push forward with purpose.

 

Establishing Your Quarterly Priorities: Translating Strategy into Action

Reestablishing clear and compelling Q4 priorities is crucial for maintaining momentum and setting the stage for a solid start to the new year. Priorities serve as the compass that guides your leadership and your team, ensuring that everyone knows what to focus on during the next three months. Setting effective priorities means identifying the projects or objectives that will significantly impact your goals, providing the momentum necessary for the upcoming year.

To make these priorities meaningful, they must come with measurable outcomes. Consider what success will look like for each priority—how will you know when you’ve achieved it? Whether it’s increasing a specific metric, completing a key project, or enhancing a certain process, defining the desired outcome will help keep your team on track and motivated. Measurable outcomes also allow for accountability and provide the opportunity to celebrate tangible progress.

Finally, effective priorities are about maintaining leadership alignment. When everyone understands the focus areas and how their roles contribute to these key objectives, it ensures the entire team moves in the same direction. This shared understanding minimizes distractions and keeps everyone engaged, working toward common goals. As we approach year-end, strong alignment around well-defined priorities will make all the difference in achieving consistent progress and positioning the team for future success.

Leadership Development: Elevate Your Skills to Finish Strong

In the final quarter of the year, enhancing your leadership skills is vital for both achieving organizational objectives and supporting your team effectively through the challenges that year-end brings. One powerful approach is to adopt a coaching mindset. As a leader, stepping into the role of a coach involves providing thoughtful feedback, offering consistent support, and creating opportunities for your team to grow. By doing so, you empower others to realize their full potential, which ultimately strengthens your organization.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is another critical aspect of effective leadership, particularly during demanding periods like Q4. Developing your EQ means practicing empathy, maintaining clarity in your communication, and remaining composed under pressure. High emotional intelligence allows you to connect meaningfully with your team, understand their needs, and keep them motivated even when stress levels rise due to end-of-year goals.

Leading through change is also fundamental during this period. With year-end comes inevitable adjustments—new targets, revised strategies, and preparations for the upcoming year. Successfully navigating these changes requires clear communication and a calm demeanor. By communicating expectations openly and addressing any concerns head-on, you help keep your team focused and aligned during times of transition.

Finally, make time for personal reflection on your growth as a leader throughout the year. Consider your key achievements and identify areas that you still want to improve upon. Leadership development is an ongoing journey, and understanding your progress will help guide your focus moving forward. By continually refining your leadership abilities, you set a powerful example for your team, inspiring them to grow and succeed alongside you.

 

Celebrating Wins and Setting the Tone for Year-End

Celebrating successes from Q3 is a powerful way to boost morale and build motivation for the final quarter. Taking the time to recognize big and small achievements creates an atmosphere of appreciation and energizes the team for the year-end push. It is equally important to highlight emerging leaders, highlighting their contributions and reinforcing their growth. Recognizing these individuals supports their development and sets a positive tone for the upcoming year, encouraging others to step up.

Fostering an environment of energy and optimism is essential. Even during peak workloads, maintaining positivity ensures the team stays engaged and inspired to give their best effort. As we move through Q4, it’s important to remember that this period is about finishing strong and laying the groundwork for an even stronger year ahead. Align your priorities, lead with intention, celebrate progress, and stay focused on what matters most. Your growth as a leader is the driving force behind the entire team’s success.

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PERSONAL VISION

So many people go through life without a personal vision. If you are one of those individuals (don’t worry, I was too), it is not too late. The following questions will help you think about what your personal vision could look like. Your personal vision should guide you in all other aspects of your life.

  • If you could project ten years from today, where will you be, what will you be doing and who will you be with?
  • If you attain your vision, what would you be doing differently than you are today?
  • Will you commit to taking the actions needed to reach your vision?
  • What obstacles or challenges do you feel you may have to overcome to attain your vision?
  • What support do you need, and from whom to get started, stay motivated and keep accountable?
  • Have you shared your vision with anyone?
  • Share it, review it regularly and commit to moving it forward by continuous execution of ACTION.

 

‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’
– Mary Oliver

 

FIVE EASY STEPS TO YOUR PERSONAL VISION

  1. Develop a PERSONAL VISION – what do you want to do, where do you want to go and how do you
    want to feel? See it, feel it, imagine it.
  2. Set GOALS that will help you achieve your vision. Goals will help you identify actions required for execution. Prioritize your goals and define what you need to focus on per quarter moving forward. List the goals that you will work on through to completion next quarter.
  3. For each goal, PLAN the keystone actions required for every week of the quarter (12 weeks) to produce the results you are looking to achieve. When possible, list action items that can be completed within one week. These will drive your weekly and daily plans.
  4. Commit to working on the WEEKLY ACTIONS. Don’t lose traction. Even when you don’t feel like working on one of the actions, remain true to your commitments. Continuous execution of actions will ensure you retain momentum.
  5. Every Monday, spend 15-30 minutes conducting a WEEKLY REVIEW (what you focused on the week prior) and weekly preview (what you will focus on this week). Your weekly plan will help you map out the actions required in your schedule. Do not skip this step! This will help you MEASURE your weekly success and identify areas that need your attention and improvement.

 

WHAT DOES A GREAT WEEK LOOK LIKE FOR YOU?

Our days are often taken up by items we have not planned or scheduled. To allow time in your schedule to work on priorities, I suggest you allocate three periods in your weekly schedule to increase your efficiency and enable greater focus on tasks required for goal attainment.

WEEKLY THREE-HOUR STRATEGIC BLOCK

This three-hour period is scheduled, not interruptible and prioritized in your weekly plan. During this time, turn your notifications off. Don’t answer the phone during this period, and if in an office, close your door. This time will require 100% of your focus and should never be bumped. It will help you dig deep into strategic activities and get things done.

TWO DAILY 30-MINUTE BUFFER BLOCKS

Schedule one 30-minute period in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Use this time to make/answer phone calls, return voice mail, answer/send emails, and deal with low-value activities.

WEEKLY THREE-HOUR FREE BLOCK

Use this time to get away from your computer and perform face-to-face activities. Lunch or coffee with colleagues/clients/stakeholders. This time helps you focus on priority relationships that require your full attention.

 

‘Unless commitment is made, there are only promise and hopes; but no plans.’
– Peter Drucker

 

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

‘Once I have a holiday, I will have more energy.’
‘When we hire additional resources, we will be more organized.’
‘When the economy picks up, things will be better.’
‘Things will settle down after our busy period, and we will have more time to work on process improvements.’

Stop waiting for things to change. Make the change. You have control of one thing – your actions.

Take responsibility for the actions you take.

Commit to focusing on your actions to make your vision a reality, be self-accountable, and consistently execute on what needs to be done.

No more excuses, demonstrate your commitment – let’s get going.

BE IN THE MOMENT

Technology is excellent. However, how often do we get so distracted by it and forget to be in the moment? Alerts pinging, social notices, text messages… all take you away from being in the present. It is almost as though the fear of missing out outweighs social interaction conventions, whether in a professional or social setting. Being continually on is exhausting, stressful, and often a factor of burnout.

How much will you miss if you don’t look at your phone when you are in a meeting or when talking to one of your colleagues, clients, or stakeholders?

I encourage you this week to SLOW DOWN, be present and focus on one thing at a time. You will be surprised by how much you get done and how better you feel.

ACTION COMMITMENTS

Choose one thing that would make a significant difference if you did it daily in your professional or personal life.

Got it? Now commit to doing it daily for one quarter. The simple act of consistently executing on a critical action item that will help you be better in your job or personal life will benefit you fivefold.

 

‘There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.’
– Jack Welch

 

If you have any questions about personal visions, or want to learn more on the powerful benefits of executive coaching to elevate your professional success, please reach out to +1 604-616-1967 or jenny@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session. If you want monthly leadership and professional development tips, sign up for my JRC newsletter or check out my social media on Instagram for top leadership advice throughout the year.

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Goal Framework | Eradicate Your Limiting Beliefs and Step Forward into 2022

Eradicate Your Professional Limiting Beliefs

Our experiences and limiting beliefs can colour the lens through which we will view 2022. Do you have any professional limiting beliefs that you need to eradicate to move forward?

Some of the limiting beliefs that I have heard the last month include:

  • “It is not the time to make any changes, the economy is terrible.”
  • “Things aren’t going to get any better until we are all vaccinated (AGAIN!), so best to stay doing what we are doing and not make any change.”
  • “I am no good at x,y,z… that is why I can’t grow and scale my business.”
  • “I don’t have the skillset, nor experience for the position/to get promoted.”

Don’t let your assumptions on what will occur in 2022 hold you back. You can have goals around outcomes that you have control over. What goals do you want to have around your: professional life, relationship, parental, social, financial, health, fitness, and professional development.

Our thoughts around our limiting beliefs directly impact our execution of action and bottom-line results. If you can mentally switch your negative beliefs as you experience them, you will have a better year in 2022. Identify where your limiting belief came from (e.g., past negative experiences, media…) and test the validity. Limiting beliefs are just that, barriers to what we can achieve.

2022 Goals

Step Forward into 2022

If you don’t think you can achieve your goals, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Take action with the following:

Step 1

Write down five limiting beliefs that may stop you from what you want to achieve in 2022.

Step 2

Objectively evaluate each limiting belief and determine if it is empowering, or hurting you from taking the next step forward.

Step 3

Reframe or replace each limiting belief. If it crops up again, then go back to your reframed statements and use these as motivational cues to move forward.

SMARTER

2022 Goal Framework

If you are nearing year-end with a ‘To Do’ list that is so long, you feel exhausted merely looking at it. Or, if you had so many goals this year that you were unable to achieve and are reluctant to set more in 2022, I want to share a goal framework that will simplify the process for you.

Writing your 2022 goals will help you focus your efforts and set out a roadmap of action for the year ahead. Written goals provide you clarity, motivate action, and help you think through the critical steps that will be required to attain achievement.

For 2022 define seven to ten goals (a combination of professional and personal) in your control. These goals will enable you to focus efforts on what is essential. I usually set seven professional and three personal stretch goals annually.

Goals should follow the S.M.A.R.T. or, better still, S.M.A.R.T.E.R. framework. I am sure you have seen the original S.M.A.R.T. acronym that gained great popularity after General Electric adopted this goal-setting technique in their company.

The intent was to ensure all company goals were specific, had measurable criteria whereby progress can be tracked, were attainable, realistic and timely. There have been many reiterations to the S.M.A.R.T. framework, and it has morphed now into the S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goal framework. Of the various versions, the words used for the acronym differ, so I have listed the most common words referenced to the right to provide you with an overview of other additions, and you can simply choose the words that resonate with you.

S – Specific

M – Measurable or Meaningful

A – Attainable, Acceptable, Achievable or Actionable

R – Realistic, Relevant or Risky

T – Timely, Timebound, Time Keyed or Time Frame

E – Exciting or Extending

R – Reviewed, Recorded or Relevant

Your professional goals should be based on your job description, or if you are an Owner or C.E.O., the functional areas of your business that are falling short whereby you know you need to focus.

For example, business functional areas:

Marketing, R&D/Innovation, Sales, Operational, Financial, Information Technology, Human Resources, Talent Development, Personal Professional Development or Customer Focus.

After you have identified 7-10 professional and personal goals to focus on in 2022, map out in what quarter you will complete the required activities. Schedule consistent and relentless action daily towards your goal achievement. Having a plan will help you remain motivated, do better, and be a better individual.

Execution is Key

Execution is Key

Getting started is often the hardest step. To decrease the potential of procrastination, write down the first five steps required under each goal that will provide you with an excellent strategy to move forward. When you are writing down the activities under each goal, if you get stuck, simply think, ‘what would the next best step be towards completion.’

After defining the next best steps under each goal, the next challenge is how you can keep momentum through to goal attainment. For each goal, identify your top three motivators or reasons for achieving the goal. This will help you stay motivated through to completion. Remember, any action you make is better than making none at all.

 

If you are interested in learning about how professional development or executive coaching can help support your leadership or your leadership team, please reach out to askme@jennyreilly.com to schedule a convenient time for a complimentary strategy session.

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