As we approach the leadership challenges of 2025, it has never been more crucial for you to get your house in order. What do I mean? Leadership demands clarity, energy and focus—qualities that are difficult to achieve when fundamental areas of your life and work are in chaos. I encourage you to align your physical environment, finances, personal life, and relationships with the same clarity and discipline you expect from your organization. DECLUTTER all areas of your life. Need a little help? Click here to read my previous LinkedIn article, “Declutter Your Life, Perform Better as a Leader.” When your house is in order, you’re better equipped to navigate an increasingly uncertain world with resiliency, clarity, flexibility, and strategic focus.
Strategy #2: Get Your House in Order to Effectively Navigate Leadership Challenges
To effectively navigate the leadership challenges of 2025, you need to ensure that your foundation is strong and stable, with healthy boundaries, harmonious relationships, and a grounding introspective practice as cornerstones. A strong personal foundation is crucial. What is making this more difficult now than ever? Burnout and a change in the traditional employment model.
1. Burnout is becoming an ever-growing crisis among leaders across all industries. An alarming statistic highlighted in the recent DDI Global Leadership Forecast 2025: Insights and Trends report underscores:
“Stress among leaders is surging, with 71% reporting a significant increase in their stress levels since stepping into their current role. This marks a sharp escalation from 63% in 2022 and signals a critical inflection point for leadership stability.”
It is now more crucial than ever to ensure your house is in order so you are equipped to handle the pressure and challenges that come with your role. Be a role model for others and start by building your own reservoir to fuel resiliency and strengthen your foundation. Click here to read the DDI report in its entirety and explore the trends redefining leadership.
2. Fractured Roles & Reduction in Traditional Employment – We are seeing a trend of a reduction of traditional employment and an increase in fractional roles. You need to be ready for this paradigm shift and get your house in order to face this change head on. I encourage you to take a tough look at how your team or organization can continue to deliver its services/products with a change in the employment relationship with labor and lower-level management. And if you are the one exiting a traditional employer and going out on your own as an independent contractor or consultant, ask yourself this crucial question:
- How can I increase my financial flexibility to shift to an income model that relies on multiple fractional contracts with either no benefits or self-paid benefits?
If you are personally and professionally addressing burnout and the change in employment model in an intentional and values-aligned way, you will be better equipped to navigate the challenges and changes ahead.
My Personal Experience:
Speaking from personal experience, my own physical and mental well-being are the bedrock of my leadership coaching business. I cannot coach, lead and inspire without my own health being in order. At several points in my life I experienced lifequakes, a term coined by Bruce Feiler that I learned about in the TQ Navigating Transitions coach certification program I recently completed. By “lifequake” what I mean is that my world was turned upside down by health crises that originated in work-related stress and not working in a soul-aligned way. The unexpected gifts that came from navigating these crises were transformative.
I got my whole house in order, and by that I mean I upgraded my food, my spiritual practice, my relationships, my physical fitness, and my mindset. And I realized that life is not just about achievement and making money; it’s about learning and growing while making a positive impact. The practices of meditation, yoga, Reiki, and visualization have all helped me to rebuild a stronger personal foundation. Each new challenge provides an opportunity to further test and reinforce the bedrock practices that enable me to uphold healthy boundaries, harmonious relationships, and soul-aligned decisions. As a result, I am not only more resilient, but I continue to experience a positive impact on my leadership performance and coaching effectiveness from my daily practices.
How to Get Your House in Order:
Effective leaders understand that success is built on consistency. They cultivate daily routines, embrace healthy habits, and maintain an organized, decluttered environment in both their personal and professional lives. This helps them to create the clarity and focus they need to lead their teams to success. Just as an athlete must be mindful of what foods they eat and the hours they sleep to perform at their optimum level in key game time moments, you need to be mindful of your habits and how they affect your ability to lead. (For more on learning from athletes how to Be Ready for 2025, read my January 2025 LinkedIn article here.)
Try this exercise to help you get your house in order…
Identify at least one daily habit or routine you can implement in your personal and professional life daily to help get your house in order. Here is a simple yet beneficial list to inspire you:
- Organize your finances: keep track of all incoming revenue and outgoing expenses, then cancel any subscriptions and services you no longer use.
- Declutter and organize the digital files on your laptop and phone, or declutter the surfaces and drawers in the room where you sleep or work.
- Work out any conflict in your relationships that is lingering: if you continue to think about it, it’s draining your energy, so plug that hole by getting to work and taking responsibility for your part in the conflict.
- Take a daily walk outside: breathing freely circulating air and feasting the eyes on nature – even small plants or bushes in the city – is rejuvenating and can clear the mind to make space for creative thoughts and inspiration.
- Meditate: it’s not about creating perfect wide-open space in your mind, but rather tuning in to your inner reality and screening out external distractions to build a strong relationship with yourself and your Source.
- Practice mindful breathing: oxygenate every cell in your body for energy, health, stress reduction, and clearer connection to your inner truth.
- Drink more water or add more healthful foods to your diet such as veggies: highly processed beverages and junk food may be fast and tasty, but do not nourish you over time and can even cause harm.
- Reduce your screen time before bed: let the mind find itself again unplugged from the outside world so it can settle down before you…
- Take a nightly inventory: a quick journaling exercise to reflect on the day.
- Start your day fresh by journaling in the morning, with a focus on gratitude, inspiring words to anchor your experiences and allow the creative juices to flow.
Authentic leadership thrives on the synergy between personal and professional order—when your personal life is organized, it fuels your ability to lead with clarity, focus, intention and purpose. Take immediate action! Whether it is scheduling a financial review, resolving conflict in a relationship or clearing off your workspace, now is the time to begin the process of alignment. Keep an eye out for next month’s strategy #3 to help you navigate a tumultuous and generative 2025.