Q4 Madness. Let's Go!
🚩 Yep. It is this time of the year (again).
Who doesn’t like the Q4 madness?
The lovely time of closing projects, writing performance reviews, sending out offers, budget planning for the next year, and doing everything as quickly as possible.
Q4 is dangerous. It challenges people to take the “last push”. (Sadly, this one often lasts until the end of January.)
How are you doing?
Q4 is not special.
Some call it a peak period.
That is rubbish. There are peaks throughout the year. You have to push many times. All the motivational speeches of the last 200m suck.
Ignore the fluff and keep your mind fresh and open. Q4 is calling for closure, but you decide how the end will look.
After all, the admin has to be done, negotiations closed, and people’s bellies fed on the Christmas dinner.
People get triggered by the common knowledge that Q4 is “hard”. Well, it is not. Not for everyone.
Is it for you? Why is that then?
(Yes, sure, some fields have it more crunched than the others.)
They need you.
Some leaders switch off during Q4. They are busy. (Who isn’t, right?)
Are you stressed? Cute. But everyone else is, too.
Does it mean you stop taking care of your responsibilities as a leader?
No.
You should not.
Now they need you. The whole you.
They don’t need a stressed shadow. They don’t want to see you falling on your mouth. Being sick won’t help either.
Leaders underestimate their influence on the team during Q4. You work alongside and think you lead by example. Hmmm. Right. Is that enough, though?
If you know you are prone to stress and you’re tired from the whole year. Maybe you feel like you’re just before burning out, then you have a problem.
Your team needs you more than ever. They want you strong, open, consistent, approachable, confident, and positive.
You cannot help them when you’re sick. You’re not covering their back when you skip your routines (hydration, sports, family time, etc.). And you are not useful when you make abrupt decisions based on the policy “let’s quickly make a decision and move on".
The beauty of leadership in Q4 is to be present and spread a positive and disruptive mood across your team. You want to break the stress feelings and replace them with focus.
After all, people perform at their best when they are focused. Erase stressed wrinkles and Q4 anxiety from your team’s faces. That is your role (and of course, performance reviews, budgets, planning, change management, etc.)
Good vibes only
You will manage one way or the other.
But how you manage will influence your relationships in your team.
Try spreading good vibes. (Because you know negative emotions are contagious). You will manage. They will manage. They have your trust and support.
Q4 is madness because people are busy thinking about gifts, Christmas organization, family plans, and cookies.
There is just too much of everything at the same time. Keep that in mind when you head about the next error in one of the projects. Mistakes will keep piling up. Especially, when people crave ginger-bread capuchino.
Bottom line
Let’s go. Don’t let Q4 to stand between you and your team. The power is in shared support. There is no better time for collaboration, feedback, and getting rid of pointless meetings.
Let madness on the snowy street and go the office fresh and ready. I don’t want tired readers and your team does not want you stressed either.
Few more weeks and awesome work and you’ll be tapping on your team’s back and shaking hands for a successful year.
Sweet 2025. Thank you!
Have a good one, Ivona