As leaders shut up shop for 2025, many will be reflecting on the year gone by.
Thoughtful leaders recognise their impact on organisations they lead. For them, reviewing the year is an essential practice to ensure they continue to learn, grow and improve as leaders.
But are you asking yourself the right questions? Your yearly review is only as good as the questions you ask.
Without meaning to, leaders can ask themselves questions that lead to conclusions they already knew.
If you want to unlock surprising insights, below are some suggestions. Pick ones that hadn’t occurred to you. And if you can, find an environment other than the one you normally work in to think them through.
Most of all, enjoy!
Questions to ask of yourself as a leader
What direct feedback did you get beyond staff surveys?
If you got little or no feedback beyond what came through formal mechanisms, what does that say about how inclusive you really are compared to who you think you are?
How in touch are you with the real culture of your organisation?
Do you know what the lived experience of working in your organisation is for those you don’t normally see?
If you are perceived as inclusive, people will proactively approach you. If they don’t, what could you change about how you show up in 2026?
What did you get better at?
Let’s face it. Leaders work at hyper speed all the time. Because of this, we risk equating our personal success with how much we get done.
However, leadership success is as much about HOW we do what we do, and how we make those around us feel.
Some leaders say they don’t have time to focus on their own growth. The solution: look at things you already do and work out how you can do them better, not just in terms of efficiency, but in how you impact those around you.
What are you most proud?
It is human nature to focus on the things we know we could have done better.
However, to learn and grow we need to identify those things we did well.
Way back, I worked with a colleague who had a little notebook. At the end of every day, she noted down things she had done well. Every day.
This is such a great practice. If you are reviewing 2025, I guarantee you will have forgotten much of what was great about the year and your achievements, particularly the small and less flashy ones.
Questions to ask of your organisation
What has changed about your organisational culture?
It is as important to track elements of your culture that got a little worse as well as what improved.
Culture is a creeping thing.
Unless you regularly keep track of it, you can end up with distrust or toxicity that is so hard wired, it becomes a massive job to address.
So many organisations conduct employee engagement surveys and fail to address the cultural, behavioural and management issues that are thrown up. At best this makes your organisation less effective. At worst, you lose talent, enable in-fighting and rack up grievances.
What did your organisation get better at?
Like individual leaders, organisations can lose sight of what it does well. What better time of year to celebrate success than now?
However, beware.
Too many organisations celebrate people and teams considered “heroes” and miss the work that enables heroes to do what they do. Make sure you notice and celebrate the unsung heroes as well as the more visible teams.
Have you considered celebrating aspects of your culture that are great rather than just the one-off achievements and high points of the year?
What perennial gripes remain?
Is it that you tried to address these and made little progress? Is it that you ignored them?
Perennial grips are such energy zappers. Overly complex systems and bureaucracy. Poor behaviour that goes unaddressed. Poor management and leadership in pockets of the organisation.
You can’t address everything, but if a gripe affects large numbers of your colleagues, why not make 2026 the year you really deal with it?
We’d love to hear from you
We’d love to hear what conclusions you reached in your look back at 2025.
If you are looking for support as a leader or in creating culture change in your organisation, reach out. We’d be happy to have a chat. Contact [email protected]