🌟 While we no longer record the Q&A discussions during our Leadership Strategy Sessions, we continue to record the opening teaching. Enjoy a special preview of what I shared about leading through August's dual nature. If you'd like to participate in upcoming sessions and be part of our leadership community, consider upgrading to join us live.
August is two months in one.
The first half still hums with late-summer energy — loose rhythms, partial presence, and “we'll pick that up after vacation” vibes. But the second half snaps hard into urgency. Suddenly, Q3 is more than halfway over, fall events are approaching, and priorities start shouting over each other.
During this month's session, we explored how to help your team land that shift with steadiness rather than whiplash. Here are four things you can do to help your team navigate this transition:
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Center on what is real. Before communicating with your team, center yourself on what August goals are genuinely driving action versus what was supposed to happen in previous months but never materialized.
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Communicate with clarity. Remind your team what's still operative from earlier plans versus what's changed, including guidance on what can be dropped or changed.
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Forecast into Fall. Remind your team of the 90-120 day perspective, including the reality that Q4 offers only about half a quarter of actual work time due to holiday disruptions.
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Honor transition time as transition time. The job of being in a transitional moment is to transition well, not to immediately jump into peak performance mode.
In our Q&A this month we covered:
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Planning team capacity during recovery. When illness or burnout hits, upgrade your timeline. If you think recovery takes a month, plan for a quarter. Critical when your incapacitation affects the whole team.
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Focusing on problems that drive progress. Avoid the dopamine trap of solving every small problem. Focus energy on challenges that actually drive team progress and right-size projects for real capacity.
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When to pause before acting. Sometimes “don't just stand there, do something” needs to become “don't do something, stand there.” Assess what's actually happening before rushing into action.
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Building consensus around change. Before proposing solutions, get team alignment that the status quo isn't working. Team changes require coalition-building and co-creation.
Our next Leadership Strategy Session will be on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. PDT, where we'll explore “Resetting the Pace for the Push Ahead”—helping leaders strategically reset their team's rhythm as everyone returns to full bandwidth and the pressure mounts to finish Q3 strong and set up a successful Q4.
We covered a lot of ground in this session, and premium subscribers can find below links to all the related resources shared during the call. 👇🏽
