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Leadership in 2025: The 7 Best New Year’s Resolutions for Managers and Their Teams
December 27, 2024
For a successful start to the new year
Many people find themselves pondering ways of self-improvement at the turn of the year: giving up smoking, getting fitter, or cutting down on sweets are often found on people’s lists. For many, a fresh new year comes with a surge of motivation to get rid of old habits. Particularly business leaders will be well advised to define concrete New Year’ resolutions in order to grow together with their teams and – an essential thing in times like these – make a meaningful contribution. That’s anything but trivial, but the right New Year’s resolutions for leaders will help you get there. WU Executive Academy Dean Bodo B. Schlegelmilch zooms in on the most important resolutions for executives and their teams and what it will take for them to succeed in the year to come.
Leading Myself – What’s Important for Me
New Year’s resolutions are essentially change processes, and, as such, they need to follow one rule: start with yourself – especially if you want to be a successful leader. For this reason, the first part of our New Year’s resolutions focuses on self-leadership.
New Year’s Resolution #1: Think Like an Entrepreneur
To stand out from your competitors in today’s dynamic business world, where creative thinking and excellent output are a must, you too should think like a pioneer. But how can you will new ideas into existence and always tackle issues with a concrete solution in mind?
3 Tips for Innovative Leadership
1. Try to Approach Problems with Curiosity
Question the status quo and actively search for new paths to take. Before you start a project, ask yourself: What’s at the root of this problem? Which quick and efficient changes would create additional value? And after completing a project, take some time to reflect on what did not work well. This way, you will build resilience and make sure to do things better the next time around.
2. Remain Agile and Open to New Things
Stay agile and keep an open mind by keeping abreast of industry trends and continuously updating your skill set. Take some time every week to learn something new by drawing inspiration from other disciplines, talking with peers, or engaging in targeted networking. Creative hobbies can also help you hone your problem-solving skills.
3. Cooperation Makes you Innovative
Innovation thrives on collaboration. Organize regular brainstorming sessions for your team or keep an innovation journal based on which team members exchange ideas and provide feedback to each other. This will give rise to new and creative solutions while also strengthening staff members’ trust, team spirit, and competences.
New Year’s Resolution #2: Become a Cross-Functional Leader
In the future, successful managers will not only lead within the possibly silo-like structures of their organization but also manage individual team members. In other words, the next New Year's resolution means, that leaders must be able to see the big picture while simultaneously making vertical investments in important relationships. With the following tips, this exercise can be a success!
3 Tips for Cross-Functional Leadership
1. Take Stock of Your Stakeholders
Identify the five most important stakeholders for you and define their strategic significance. Then ask yourself whether you are devoting enough time and attention to the people with strategic importance.
2. Invest your Time in a Targeted Way
As a next step, explore how much time you spend leading teams in general and your own team specifically. If you find that you are spreading yourself thin as a result of too much vertical leadership, it can be a good idea to invest in building stronger relationships with the most valuable managers of other teams.
3. Deepen Certain Relationships
And finally, build stronger relationships. To achieve reliable work relationships and become a trusted partner for managers of other teams, you need to know their motivations, limitations, and goals. This knowledge will allow you to create true win-win situations by proposing solutions and processes that benefit all parties.
New Year’s Resolution #3: Learn from Past Mistakes
We have all been there: we do the same thing over and over again, hoping it will produce different results next time. It’s simply human nature to feel most comfortable with what we already know, but to bring about real change, we need to look at past decisions. Therefore, use the time of New Year's resolutions to reflect and gain new insights that will influence your future decisions and turn past mistakes into potential learning opportunities. To escape old patterns, ask yourself the following questions.
5 Questions to Question Habitual Thinking Patterns
1. What Decision am I Facing Today?
Free up some time to really understand the problem before you start thinking about how to solve it. A vague understanding of an issue is rarely enough to come up with a concrete way of tackling it.
2. What About this Decision Stresses Me Out?
Find out what you are worried about. Stress can have an impact on your decision-making skills, making you prone to rely on familiar patterns and prejudiced thinking instead of braving a new approach.
3. Are There Any Past Decisions I can Learn From?
Analyze past decisions that did not lead to good results. Find out what went wrong and why. This way, you can avoid repeating the same mistakes.
4. Which Assumptions Led to the Mistakes?
Picture the situation you were in and question the assumptions you made at the time. Did you choose the path of least resistance or decide prematurely?
5. What Can I Learn from that and Do Differently Next Time?
Use the insights gained to inform future decisions and actively change your (instinctive) behavior and approaches. You will be surprised about the effect this will have on the outcomes.
Leading the Team: What Your Team Needs
But self-leadership is not all there is: it’s just as important to think about what managers need to accomplish in order to be there for their teams or other managers and support them in the best way possible – particularly when times are rough. The second part of our team leadership resolutions will focus on this issue.
New Year’s Resolution #4: The Five Most Important Qualities of Successful Leadership Teams
A recurring New Year's resolution for managers should of course be to strengthen teamwork, because your success will not only depend on your individual talent and work ethic but also on how effectively the team members collaborate. A team with the following five qualities is best equipped to collaborate so effectively their output will reach new levels.
5 Tips for Developing a Successful and Efficient Team
1. Goal orientation
Successful teams unite around shared goals and set clear priorities based on them. If people lack a common sense of direction, even the most ambitious vision will not help them find the way.
2. Discipline and Focus
Outstanding teams stick to routines, hold productive meetings that do not waste anyone’s resources (particularly their time), and make sure that everyone plays their part. Discipline and focus are the foundation based on which they make the right decisions and successfully implement them.
3. Effective Execution and Reliability
The most effective management teams are resilient, uncompromising where it counts, but, as team players, very understanding where people are concerned. They also see changes and obstacles as opportunities, not threats. They rise to the occasion when they encounter a difficult situation and are always there when you need them (the most). In other words: they practice management by example.
4. Flexibility and an Open Mind for New Things
Successful teams are adaptable and swiftly respond to changes. In doing so, they are willing to take risks and honor a culture in which mistakes are okay, provided that they are used as learning opportunities.
5. Teamwork as the Key to Success
True team players value relationships, hear the voices of everyone concerned, and keep their promises. They actively promote trust and team spirit, do not hesitate to provide feedback, and can handle criticism.
New Year’s Resolution #5: Support Your Team, Particularly in Difficult Times
A lack of predictability, constant change, and increasing complexity all make employees insecure and sometimes even anxious, both with regard to their current job and the future in general. The next New Year's resolution therefore deals with the question, what kind of leadership is needed in such uncertain times. What does it take for the team to feel empowered instead of being dragged down by negativity?
3 Tips to Lead Your Team Through Uncertainty
1. Think in Opportunities, Not Risks
When you address uncertainties, focus on the opportunities arising from the situation. This can be the chance to experiment, be innovative, or to reconsider your priorities and responsibilities. This approach will help you turn your team’s attention to the potential for positive change instead of staying preoccupied with the current challenges.
2. Share Your Experiences
If you tell your team how you have successfully navigated difficult times in the past, they will be reminded that rough patches are inevitable – but that they can be optimistic that together, you will once again overcome all obstacles.
3. Encourage Your Team to Think Like Entrepreneurs
Invite your employees to regularly consider the path less travelled, be innovative, and solve problems independently. The more often you and your team leave your comfort zones, the less uncomfortable it will become.
New Year’s Resolution #6: Master the Three Big Challenges Presented by Hybrid Work
Experts agree on one New Year's resolution that always applies: that hybrid work is here to stay. While there are certainly many advantages to reconciling work at the office and from home, it also comes with major challenges for managers of hybrid teams. Here are some tips on how to deal with them.
3 Tips for Successful Leadership in a Hybrid Work Environment
1. Coordinate Your Schedules
Instead of determining fixed days of the week to spend in the office, agree on a few (half) days on which, as far as possible, the whole team is at the office. This will help you introduce staff members to new topics, have important meetings, realize projects, etc. Clearly communicate why this shared time at the office is important so that team members see the rationale behind this approach and abide by the plan.
2. Rely on a Strong Corporate Culture
The less time people spend at the office, the more difficult it becomes to establish a corporate culture based on appreciation. For this reason, it’s a good idea to create incentives for being at the office by turning it into a “smart space.” This means doing away with large open-plan offices to make space for smaller units enabling focused work as well as larger meeting and creative zones, which foster innovation and digital collaboration. After all, creative cooperation is the basis for innovation. That’s why it is key to create the space needed for this purpose – in people’s minds, calendars, and workplaces.
3. Define New Leadership as a Priority
Working from a remote location requires more, not less leadership. Remote leadership is built on trust as well as unambiguous and open communication. It provides structure and, not least, security to employees who need it. This, however, should not be confused with micro-managing and mails or even calls that have the sole purpose of controlling staff. Managers are thus well advised to regularly gauge the mood and check in with everybody (which is something you really cannot do too often).
New Year’s Resolution #7: Promote an Open Team Culture
There are many things to be gained when people are not afraid to speak their mind at the office: it drives innovation at the company, furthers inclusion, and increases staff members’ motivation and commitment and is therefore our last New Year's resolution for a successful 2025. So what concrete actions can you take to create a safe space where every team member feels that they’re heard and that their input is appreciated?
Make Room for Feedback and Feedforward
To make sure that communication doesn’t turn into a one-way street in your team, it is imperative to create the right framework conditions and processes. Feedback and criticism are wonderful things. But what is the right place, time, and way for it? You could, for instance, create dedicated formats such as “espresso talks.” These can take place during the workday or in the breaks of longer meetings and are an opportunity to check in and answer questions as well as make sure everybody is on board. This will help you create a space where you can give and receive feedback in a way everybody feels comfortable with.
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