November is when leadership teams start making decisions that will shape the next year. Budgets are being finalized, strategic priorities are taking shape, and conversations about people become more serious.
Who is ready for a bigger role? Who should lead the next major client engagement? Who needs more support before taking on additional responsibility?
And (maybe the most important question) who has been so successful that everyone has quietly decided to overlook a few things?
This tends to make the room uncomfortable.
I've worked with leadership teams where everyone knows a particular leader is difficult to work with. Their numbers are terrific, clients love them, and their colleagues have learned how to work around them. Sometimes those workarounds have become so routine that nobody questions them anymore.
Until that leader is given even more responsibility. Or makes a costly mistake that involves more than just him.
Your leadership decisions are sending a message
People pay attention when something meaningful is at stake. They notice who gets invited into important conversations, whose behavior gets addressed, and whose behavior gets a pass.
Consider two partners at a professional services firm. One consistently exceeds revenue targets but leaves associates confused about priorities, rarely delegates meaningful work, becomes a bottleneck and then demands urgency, and has a habit of going around colleagues when decisions don't go their way.
The other delivers strong results, develops associates who can handle more complicated client matters, and works through disagreements directly with peers.
Both are valuable. But the decision to give either partner additional responsibility says something about how the firm defines leadership. Don’t fool yourself, the rest of the firm is watching.
What are you rewarding beyond the numbers?
Results are essential. I've yet to meet a CEO who says, "Revenue was terrible this year, but everyone was really pleasant, so we're thrilled!"
The challenge is looking at how those results were achieved. When evaluating leaders, consider what happened around them throughout the year:
Decision-making: Did they help colleagues make better decisions, or did everything have to come through them?
Communication: Did people know what was expected, or were they constantly guessing?
Feedback: Did they develop others through direct, useful conversations?
Accountability: Did they address problems early, including their own mistakes?
Collaboration: Did their peers trust them to consider the needs of the broader organization?
These questions reveal contributions that a traditional performance review may miss. They also expose the hidden costs of strong individual performance.
The leadership behaviors you tolerate become your standard
One of the more difficult conversations I have with executive teams involves the behavior of their highest performers.
A leader repeatedly misses internal deadlines but delivers for clients. Another dominates meetings, leaving colleagues reluctant to speak. Someone consistently avoids difficult conversations, so their peers end up doing the cleanup.
Everyone sees it. And everyone has a reason for allowing it to continue.
"She's under tremendous pressure."
"He's our biggest revenue producer."
"That's just how they've always operated."
Over time, colleagues learn to accommodate the behavior. People stop expecting it to change. Newer employees may conclude that the same behavior is acceptable if their results are strong enough.
This is where leadership culture gets established, one exception at a time. And it raises a question worth discussing before year-end decisions are finalized:
What are we teaching people they can get away with if they perform well enough?
Don't overlook the problems someone prevented
Some of the strongest leadership contributions never become visible problems.
A practice group leader addresses a disagreement before it escalates to the managing partner. A department head clarifies decision authority before two teams spend weeks working in different directions. A senior associate coaches a colleague through a difficult client conversation, helping that person handle the next one independently.
There may be no dramatic success story to share. The work simply moves more smoothly. Those contributions are easy to underestimate because the problem never materialized. When you're reviewing leaders, ask what became easier for other people because of how someone led.
And if you de-escalated, facilitated, or coached, make sure to share those stories. Don’t expect everyone to know your contributions.
You may discover that some of your most effective leaders have been quietly building the organization's capacity all year.
Make your 2027 leadership decisions more deliberate
Before finalizing expanded responsibilities, assignments, or leadership opportunities, bring a few questions into the senior-team conversation.
1. What specifically will this person be responsible for?
"Ready for more" is vague. More people? More complex decisions? Greater responsibility across departments? Define what the opportunity will actually demand.
2. What behaviors helped this person succeed?
Look beyond the outcome. Consider the judgment, communication, feedback, and accountability that contributed to it.
3. What needs to be addressed before expanding their responsibility?
Sometimes the right decision is to offer the opportunity while being explicit about what must change. Avoiding the conversation simply transfers the problem to more people.
4. What message will this decision send to others?
Imagine another leader watching the decision and asking, "What would I need to do to earn that opportunity?"
Would the answer reflect the leadership culture you truly want, not just the one you talk about?
Your operating system is visible in your choices
Every organization has an operating system for how leadership actually works. You can see it in meetings, decision-making, feedback, communication, candor, and the behaviors people accept.
I developed the Trusted Leadership Operating System to help senior teams establish consistent expectations in these areas.
Year-end decisions are an opportunity to put those expectations into practice.
As you prepare for 2027, look carefully at what you're rewarding, what you're overlooking, and who you're trusting with more. Your people will draw conclusions from those decisions, whether you explain them or not.
What are your year-end decisions teaching people about leadership?
