#272: 5 ideas to lead with more clarity in 2026

0:00I created vehicles that would allow me to communicate and inspire people throughout the year. Every leader should do that.

0:12David Novak:Welcome to another episode of How Leaders Lead and Happy New Year's, everybody. David, it's January 1st. I know you love the beginning of the new year. How are you feeling about 2026? Happy New Year, Koula. I'm feeling great. Right. 2025 was awesome. 2026 is going to be even better. I believe it. I believe it. You know, as we head into the new year, there's always a lot of noise around resolutions and fresh starts and big goals. And a lot of time, David, leaders feel this pressure to come in really hot back from the holidays, to move faster, to push harder, to set bigger goals. Like they have this kind of energy about them that's like, let's go, let's go, let's go.

0:49David Novak:But, you know, I think as we've interviewed so many leaders, what we've learned over time is that strong leadership doesn't always come from doing more. What it really comes from is getting clear on the things that matter. And David, I'm so glad that this episode is airing on New Year's Day because you have a number of core practices that you've relied on year after year that help you stay focused and really lead with intention. And these practices we've talked about a lot on the show. You've written about them in your books. But what we want to do today for everybody listening is give you a snapshot of these kind of core practices that you can start your year with so that you start strong and you keep your focus and clarity on the things that really matter.

1:34David Novak:So David, I'm putting you in the hot seat today to give our listeners five key practices that they can do today on January 1st, 2026, that are really going to help them start the year off strong with a ton of clarity about focusing on the things that really matter? Well, it's going to take me a while maybe to come up with five. Okay. But I'll give it a shot. So I'm going to stall. I'll stall a little bit by saying, you know, it's like every business puts process and discipline around what really matters. And, you know, so I think as a leader, you have to put process and discipline around what really matters and think that through as you go into each and every year.

2:10So I think the first thing I always do is I do what I call my three by five exercise. And, you know, self-awareness is critical. You have to know who you are. So I do this three by five exercise where I actually get out a card and I write down on one side of it, you know, what am I today as a leader? Then I write down, how can I be even more effective tomorrow? And so I do a self-assessment based on all the feedback that I've gotten, based on my own assessment of how I think I am today. And then I write down what can I do to be even better to tomorrow and that tomorrow being, you know, 2026. And then I post it on my refrigerator.

2:55So I keep it front and center. So I, you know, I go to that refrigerator far too often. So when I go there, it reminds me of my three by five card. So, you know, I think having a high self-awareness and going through the process of, you know, who you are today and how you can get better, how you can improve, you know, what you got to work on to sharpen the X, I think is really, really important. And at the same time, you know, leveraging the skills that you have.

3:20David Novak:I love it. That's a practice that I've adopted from you. And I love seeing that three by five card on my refrigerator because I too visit the fridge probably more than I should, but it's just such a good reminder of not only what you set out to do for that year, but how you really want to show up in the world. It reminds me of that episode that we did recently with Damola, who's the CEO of Red Lobster. He says, leadership is all about self-improvement. And you're so right. You can't really do anything for others unless you truly know yourself and how you're going to grow yourself. Yeah. And, you know, I think that that three-by-five card really drives, you know, your self-awareness.

3:58But then I think you also have to build awareness of what your organization has to really address to be successful in the coming year. And that means I ask myself, as a leader, have I defined the reality that we face? Because, you know, I think the first responsibility of leadership, as other people have said, is to define reality. So, you know, have I defined that reality for my team? And as I go into the year, you know, how am I going to express that so that everybody knows what the challenges we face as we go about growing the business. So that would be the second thing.

4:39David Novak:I've heard you talk about the different categories of reality that you feel are most important to define. What are those categories? Well, I think you want to define the financial reality. You know, what are the economics of your business? What kind of shape are you in? The customer reality. You know, what are your customers telling you about your business? and then your team member reality. You know, you've got, everybody has their employees and, you know, what are your team members telling you and how are they seeing the world? And I think if you define the reality from the financial side of the equation, the customer side of the equation and how your team members are thinking about it, you've got a real understanding of what you have to address to be successful.

5:24David Novak:I also think coupled with that, David, the defining reality is you don't need to be the only person in your business Who knows that reality? So a big part of that is also communicating it to your team. And the third practice that I know you do at the beginning of every year is you think through how you're going to communicate these things to your team. So talk a little bit about that third principle or practice around communication plans. Well, I think, you know, you have to have a plan and you have to work. You know, people say communicate, communicate, communicate. They're right. And the best leaders do communicate.

5:57And the reason is, is the more you know, the more you care. And so, you know, I think that was a phrase that Sam Walton had. And I've used it and ripped it off for many years. Sometimes I forget to give him the attribution. But I realized that that sounds way, way, way too smart for me to come up with anything like that. But communication is just such a powerful thing. And don't leave it to chance. So I would come up with different ways that I was going to communicate. You know, so I would always have my, you know, I had global webinars, you know, as technology enabled, those kinds of things. And, you know, I whenever I went on road trips, I posted what was happening real time, you know, with emails and other communications where I would send out pictures of restaurants that I saw around the world.

6:47But I created vehicles that would allow me to communicate and inspire people throughout the year. Every leader should do that.

6:57David Novak:I love it. I also love, you know, I've had the privilege of touring the Yum headquarters in Louisville a couple of times. And I love all the letters that you've written to all the employees that are framed on the wall. Recognition is a very important thing. And that's another thing that I do. That would probably be the fourth thing that I do every year. is I really decide, you know, what do I want to recognize most this year? You know, I would always try to recognize the leaders who we're exhibiting are how we work together principles or how we win together principles. But then each year I would try to pick one that I would really try to hone in on.

7:36Like, you know, one year we were focused on being customer maniacs. So I'm going to try to recognize the heck out of every customer maniac, I got people who were just going above and beyond to make sure they could do everything to satisfy our customers, understand what our customers want, and then please them. So another year was execution. I really wanted to get at execution. Who's really driving the kind of execution that we really need to have? Another year was just building know-how. Who's really seeking knowledge wherever they can find it? And so I would try to hone in on, you know, particular behaviors that I really wanted to accentuate as we went into the year.

8:21And every year I tried to find that little next thing that would take our company forward, whether it was customer focus, building know-how, you know, getting better at execution. Those are just three examples. You know, every business is all about people. And every leader needs to focus on people. And you can't really, you know, coach everybody in the organization. But there are people who you can coach and you can take the time to coach. I would always develop my coaching plan. Who are the people in 2026 that I'm going to really go out of my way to make sure they get my personal attention in coaching?

8:59And then I would develop a way to do that. And one way I did that, going back to the beginning of our conversation, is I had everybody, all the leaders in our company, develop their own three-by-five cards. And I would set up one-on-one coaching sessions with a number of leaders. And the first thing we do is go through that three-by-five card. And then we get into key performance indicators, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, I think having a plan to do that really, really makes a lot of sense. You just can't really leave things to chance. And so I think the three by five card really helps you define your personal reality.

9:39You know, I think then you need to make sure that you define the reality, the customer reality, employee reality, the financial reality you're facing. Make sure people know that. Then have a communication plan that really just keeps laying it out, you know, what you're learning, how you're doing, you know, really sharing with people what you know so that they're going to care even more. And then, you know, I think it's so important to develop your coaching plan. Who are you going to coach in 2026? And then last but not least, you know, who are you going to recognize? And let me not forget one other thing about that recognition.

10:18Have fun doing it.

10:20David Novak:I was waiting for it. I knew you were going to say it. Recognize people and have fun doing it. So those are some things I think can help any leader, you know, get off to a good start. But most importantly, you need to put process and discipline around those five things to make sure that they happen for you and your piece of whatever company you happen to be leading. I love these practices because they're really so simple. And they're the things that we as leaders and members of an organization should get into the habit of doing on a regular basis. And you don't have to pull up a spreadsheet, a sales report, I mean, maybe to define your financial reality.

10:57David Novak:But these are things that you can just get into the process of doing yourself. And I know that as I have incorporated some of these habits into my own life, I just find that I think so much more clearly. And I have a tremendous amount of focus on the things that matter most because of this process and discipline around just spending time thinking about these things. Well, that's great, Kula. And I want to go into this year, first of all, by recognizing all our listeners for tuning in. appreciate appreciate the fact i also want to recognize you for telling everybody about this podcast because it is taking off and it is an extremely popular podcast and uh we're doing a lot of good in the world and the more more we can have people hear the message of what great leaders are telling us that we should do i think that the better off we're all going to be so so thank you very much for your support out there.

11:52And let's have a great 2026. And I can assure you that we are going to keep bringing fantastic leaders to you each week. And we're going to do our best to really hone in on the insights that we learned from each one of them. And we appreciate any feedback you want to give us.

12:10David Novak:Thank you so much for listening and happy new year.

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