Your 2025 Strategy is Missing Its Most Important Ingredient

As we head toward the end of the year, leaders everywhere are deep in 2025 strategy sessions. You're analyzing Q4 projections, setting ambitious new KPIs, and outlining roadmaps for growth. But even the most detailed plan is likely missing its single most important ingredient.

It’s not more budget, a bigger team, or a new marketing channel.

The most critical ingredient for your 2025 strategy is adaptability.

And I don't mean the vague, corporate-speak version of the word. I mean building tangible, operational-level systems for agility. Why? Because your meticulously crafted plan will inevitably collide with reality. A new technology will emerge, a customer preference will shift, a new competitor will enter the market.

A rigid plan shatters on impact. An adaptable one bends, learns, and gets stronger.

While you're planning what you'll do next year, you need to be just as focused on how you'll react when things don't go according to plan.

Here are 3 ways to bake adaptability into your 2025 strategy:

1. Pilot Programs Over Perfect Launches: Before you go all-in on a massive, year-long initiative, launch a small-scale pilot. This is exactly why I'm running a pilot for my S.A.F.E.T.Y. Accelerator program right now. It allows for real-world feedback, iteration, and learning in a low-risk environment. You learn what works before you bet the farm on it.

2. Invest in "How," Not Just "What": Instead of only funding new projects, allocate resources to improving your processes. This year, my biggest investment is in AI skill development—learning how to use new tools to make my existing work faster and smarter. An investment in better systems pays dividends across every single project you tackle.

3. Shorten Your Feedback Loops: How quickly can you tell if something is working? Your bi-annual review is too slow. You need data now. This is why I'm launching a bi-weekly newsletter—to create a direct, consistent conversation with my audience. It's a way to share ideas, gauge reactions, and stay tuned in, in real-time.

As you finalize your 2025 plans, ask yourself: Where is the flexibility? How will we pivot? If you build in adaptability now, you'll be ready for anything the year throws at you.

3 Unconscious Habits That Create Proximity Bias (And How to Fix Them)

You're a fair leader. You treat everyone on your team the same. Or do you?

Proximity bias is the unconscious tendency to favor the people we physically see, and it's likely sabotaging your hybrid team's performance without you even realizing it. It shows up in the "quick chats" that leave remote employees out of the loop, the high-visibility projects that go to in-office staff, and the performance reviews that are skewed by "face time" instead of actual results.

This isn't a character flaw; it's a brain glitch. But as a leader, it's your job to debug it. Here are three common unconscious habits that create proximity bias and how to fix them.

Habit 1: The "Hallway Decision"

You bump into a colleague in the office, make a quick decision about a project, and move on. It's efficient, but you've just excluded every remote member of the team from a key conversation.

• The Fix: Implement a "document-first" rule. Any decision, no matter how small, must be documented and shared in a public channel (like Slack or Teams) immediately. This creates a single source of truth and ensures information is distributed equitably, not based on who is standing by the coffee machine.

Habit 2: The "Meeting After the Meeting"

The virtual meeting ends, and you immediately turn to the two people in the conference room with you to debrief. "What did you really think?" This is where the real conversation happens, and your remote team knows it.

• The Fix: Make the last five minutes of every meeting a dedicated "digital debrief." Close the informal part of the agenda and explicitly ask, "Okay, let's capture key takeaways and action items in the chat right now." This ensures all final thoughts are shared in the open and that follow-up actions are visible to everyone.

Habit 3: The "Go-To" Person Bias

When a new, urgent project comes up, who is the first person you think of? Often, it's the person you see every day—your "go-to" person. This starves your remote employees of growth opportunities.

• The Fix: Replace visibility with data. Before assigning a critical task, consult your team's CliftonStrengths grid. Ask yourself, "What specific talents does this project require?" and assign it to the person whose strengths are the best fit, regardless of their location. This forces you to make objective, data-driven talent decisions, not biased, convenience-based ones.

Becoming a Proximity-Proof Leader™ isn't about treating everyone the same. It's about creating a system where everyone has an equal opportunity to contribute and succeed. It's the most critical skill for any manager in a hybrid world.

Ready to build a truly fair and effective hybrid team?

I am launching the inaugural pilot cohort for The Proximity-Proof Leader™, an intensive 3-month program designed to give you the tactical skills to lead with clarity and confidence. We'll meet every other week in a small group to master these techniques. The pilot investment is just $100/month.

Spots are limited to 8 leaders to ensure a high-touch experience. Click here to learn more and enroll.

Psychological Safety is More Than a Buzzword. Here Are 3 Ways to Actually Build It.

You've heard the phrase a thousand times. You know it's important. But what does building "psychological safety" actually look like on a Tuesday afternoon when your team is facing a tight deadline and a critical problem arises?

It's not about being "nice" or avoiding conflict. It's about creating an environment where candor is safe, and taking interpersonal risks feels productive, not dangerous. It's the bedrock of high-performing teams, but it doesn't happen by accident.

Most leaders unintentionally sabotage safety with well-meaning but counterproductive habits. They ask for solutions instead of welcoming problems, reward silence instead of encouraging dissent, and fail to see their people as individuals.

If you're ready to move beyond the buzzword, here are three practical, actionable ways to start building real psychological safety today.

1. Stop Asking for Solutions, Start Rewarding the Truth.

The most common way leaders crush safety is by saying, "Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions." This tells your team that identifying a risk is only valuable if they've already fixed it.

• Instead, try this: When a team member flags a concern, make your first words: "Thank you for bringing this to my attention." This simple act validates their courage and encourages others to do the same. Then, follow up with, "Let's walk through this together." This transforms you from a judge into a partner and makes it safe to speak up, even with incomplete information.

2. Make Vulnerability a Leadership Competency.

Your team will not take risks if you don't. As a leader, you must model vulnerability. This doesn't mean oversharing; it means being honest about your own fallibility.

• Try this: Start your next team meeting by saying, "Looking back on our last project, I realize I could have been clearer about our goals. That's on me. I want to discuss how we can improve that communication process going forward." By owning a misstep, you give your team permission to be human and to learn from their own mistakes without fear.

3. Recognize the Person, Not Just the Task.

Generic praise like "good job" is nice, but it doesn't build Esteem—a core pillar of psychological safety. Esteem is the feeling of being seen and valued for your unique contributions.

• Instead, try this: Use the language of CliftonStrengths to give specific, powerful recognition. "Sarah, the way you used your 'Analytical' talent to find that flaw in the data saved us from a huge mistake. Thank you." This shows you're paying attention not just to the work, but to the unique individual doing the work.

Building psychological safety is a skill. It requires practice, intention, and a framework for success. When you master it, you unlock the full intelligence, creativity, and performance of your entire team.

Ready to master this skill?

I am launching the inaugural pilot cohort for The S.A.F.E.T.Y. Accelerator™, an intensive 3-month program for a small group of leaders dedicated to building a culture of trust. We'll meet every other week to turn these concepts into your leadership reality. The pilot investment is just $100/month.

Spots are limited to 8 leaders to ensure a high-touch experience. Click here to learn more and enroll.

Stop Guessing, Start Coaching: How to Use CliftonStrengths to Unlock Your Team's Potential

You have a talented team, but something isn't clicking. Projects stall, communication breaks down, and you feel like you're constantly putting out fires instead of leading strategically. You know your team is capable of more, but you don't know how to unlock it.

The problem is that you're managing the "what"—the tasks, the deadlines, the projects—without a clear understanding of the "how." How does your team naturally think, communicate, and get things done?

This is where strengths-based leadership, powered by a tool like Gallup's CliftonStrengths, transforms everything. It gives you a user manual for your team, allowing you to stop guessing and start coaching with precision.

Here are three ways you can use CliftonStrengths to immediately increase your team's effectiveness.

1. Delegate Smarter, Not Harder

Stop assigning tasks based on who has the most bandwidth. Start aligning work with natural talent. Have a project that requires building consensus and getting buy-in from other departments? Give it to the person with high 'Influencing' talents like "Woo" or "Communication." Need someone to think through all the potential risks of a new plan? Tap your team member with "Deliberative" or "Analytical." When you delegate to a person's strengths, you're not just giving them a task; you're giving them energy.

2. Transform Your 1:1s

Most 1:1 meetings are boring status updates. A strengths-based 1:1 is a powerful coaching conversation. Instead of just asking "What are you working on?", you can ask questions like:

• "Which of your strengths did you get to use most this week?"

• "I saw your 'Achiever' strength in action on that project. How did that feel?"

• "Is there any part of your role that feels like it's draining your energy? Let's see if we can reshape it to better fit your talents."

These conversations build self-awareness and show your team members that you see and value them as individuals.

3. Build Complementary Partnerships

Struggling with a team member who is a brilliant big-picture thinker ("Ideation," "Futuristic") but struggles with details and execution? Don't try to "fix" their weakness. Instead, partner them with someone who has strong "Executing" talents like "Discipline" or "Responsibility." By creating these complementary partnerships, you leverage the collective strength of the team, cover for individual gaps, and build a culture of interdependence.

Leading with strengths is the fastest path to building a team that is engaged, effective, and confident. It allows you to be the coach your team deserves—one who develops talent instead of just managing tasks.

Using Strengths is the foundation of our work in both our S.A.F.E.T.Y. and Hybrid Leadership programs. If you're ready to lead with this level of insight, let's talk.