New year’s resolutions for leaders – start 2025 strong!

Happy New Year! I hope your celebrations were filled with fun, joy, and memories! Now, it’s time to lock in and focus on our resolutions. Have you made some personal resolutions? Spending more time with the family, getting into the gym more often? Whatever it is, I hope you succeed this year! One of my resolutions is to continue bringing dignity to the workplace and re-imagining the idea of what good leadership looks like.

If you’re thinking about some new year’s resolutions for work, I thought I’d provide some ideas to help you along the way! Each of these are things me and many of our clients have applied and found great success.

Develop a vision for your team

Start and finish the year with clarity and decisiveness! Create a vision to define your goals for the year, align your people around them, and create a unified benchmark for overall success. Make it relatable, memorable, actionable, and honest to make it resonate the best with your team. Check out my blog or my podcast episodes (here and here) on the elements of a vision and the critical steps you need to take to make it a truly transformative reference for your team.

Improve time management

Time management is probably one of the hardest things to do as a leader. You’re constantly juggling tasks, people, and priorities. Depending on the size of your team and/or the situation you are in, this can start to feel overwhelming. Over the course of the last year, you probably had more than a couple weeks where you felt like you were constantly behind on something no matter how hard you tried to stay on track.

Set a goal to improve your time management by meeting consistently with your people. By getting a constant pulse on your team’s needs, you can equip them and delegate more effectively, and significantly reduce the amount of tasks you need to get directly involved Invest time in your people to save time in your day, starting this year!

Boost your team’s performance metrics

Helping your team perform at their best doesn’t mean just setting more targets or pushing them harder. This year, think about how you can provide the right support to help them reach their goals. Focus on offering clarity around expectations, providing the right tools and resources, and making sure they feel empowered to succeed.

Check in on how things are going, celebrate milestones, and provide consistent feedback that helps your team improve. Boosting performance is about setting up a psychologically safe, supportive environment where everyone can maximize their talent.

Embrace human dignity

Respecting the dignity of each individual on your team should always be a top priority. This year, think about how you can actively support your team as individuals – not just as employees. Get to know what drives your team members, what challenges they’re facing, and what they need to thrive. When people feel valued and respected, they’re more likely to stay engaged and motivated. Create an environment where candor, mutual respect, and empathy are the norm. When you invest in your people – results will follow.

If you want to start your year off on the right track, Dignify can help you with each and every single one of these resolutions! Whether you want to develop a world-class vision for your team, improve key leadership skills like time management, or learn how to better support your people for better performance, we have a solution for you. Happy New Year! Let’s start it off strong!

JOE KIEDINGER

ACTION PLAN: Focus on leveling up your leadership in 2025 – set some new year’s resolutions for work!