657 | What Your Leadership Should Look Like in 2026

If your team is disengaged, if your growth is flattening, or if you feel stuck in the same old cycle, 2026 won't fix that, but your leadership can. That is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are.

Today we are wrapping up the year. Well, not today we're wrapping up the year, but we are at that time where we are wrapping up the year.

And if you're serious about growth in 2026, then guess what? It starts with changing how you lead or adjusting how you lead.

Today's episode is about the leadership habits you've got to leave behind and what to replace them with so that you don't hit the same roadblocks next year.

Now, this isn't about being harsher or doing more. It's about aligning your leadership to who you are and what your business needs next.

So if you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure how to lead a team that thrives, this episode is your reset.

Controlling Every Outcome (00:01:25)

So we're going to go through five different behaviors that you need to leave behind, and the first one we are starting with is controlling every outcome.

Now, listen, it is difficult. I get this. I understand. I've been there. You know, we've been leading leaders for decades.

And I know one of the toughest things is you're so passionate about what you do, and you're so passionate about having a great outcome and delivering a fantastic outcome...

... and that you can tend to possibly micromanage or be the bottleneck or make every decision go through you, right?

Instead of creating a process that builds team members up, right? Instead of creating a delegation framework that puts people in a place where they grow, they become better, they learn from you how to make decisions, they learn from you how to solve problems, and--

And they start to take the stuff off of your shoulders or off of your back, however you want to look at it, right?

So if you personally review every client deliverable, or if you're trying to ensure that there's quality in every aspect by controlling those pieces, then what's happening is you're wasting a ton of money on payroll.

You are wasting a ton of money on paying people who should be doing those things, but you're stepping in and doing it or at least making sure that you're a part of the process.

The problem is, is that does create a bottleneck. That does create a system where everything has to run through you. And I can tell you, I get it, I understand why it makes a lot of sense.

But what doesn't make sense is not realizing how important it is for you to train people so you don't have to be in that place. Now, you can do this for a while.

You can even do it for a long time, but eventually something's going to happen. What is that something? You're going to get burnt out.

You're going to get tired of being the one that has to control everything. On top of that, if you've got any quality players on your team, guess what they're going to do? They're going to leave.

They're going to go somewhere where they can be utilized to the best of their abilities.

They're going to go somewhere where somebody wants them to make decisions, wants them to solve problems, wants them to make sure that every T is crossed and every I is dotted. They want to be used.

They want to be able to bring their strengths, their gifts or talents to the table and be utilized. So if that's not you, then they might stay with you for a decent amount of time, but at some point, they're going to leave.

So what do you need to do? Change. Simple. Just change. That's all you got to do.

Make sure that you're not setting up things that rely solely on you.

Make sure that you're training your team how to do the things that you're doing to solve the problems that you're solving, to make sure that we're getting to the outcomes that we need to do it and to do it with the standards that you have.

So that is gonna take some time. But guess what? How much time are you losing by you being that bottleneck? Right.

How much time are you losing by you micromanaging processes? So get in there.

Pick five things, five areas where you see that you have too much input. I am not saying let go of everything. Just hand the rope to the team and you know, they're just off and running.

I-- that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying set them up for success. Do it right on the front side, if you will. Do it right on the front side.

If you will spend time training and guiding and directing and getting them to that place where they know what they're doing, then you won't have to be so much a part of every process. They will take it from there.

And if you don't have good enough team players, hold them accountable. And if they can't step up, then they need to step out.

But don't lose your good players because you're not giving them enough to do and you're not treating them with enough dignity that they do have the skills to do it. So in 2026, don't be the bottleneck. Don't be the one that everything has to run through.

Pretending Everything’s Fine (00:05:46)

Number two, do yourself a favor. I'm a pretty positive guy. I like to think that I'm a pretty positive guy. But there's one thing that I absolutely do not do, and that is I do not pretend that everything is fine.

If you have a habit of avoiding problems for the sake of, you know, being positive, or if you're wearing some rose colored glasses, if you're looking at things and going, everything's going to be fine.

Everybody's going to be fine. Everybody's doing a great job and you've got like 10 team members that are over there going, man, I'm, I'm struggling. I, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm, I'm tired, I'm exhausted, I'm worn out. Then we have to shift, right?

I want you to be positive. I cannot stand, you know, negative cultures and negative environments and people who are negative and complaining and gossiping, all that.

I understand. I want it positive as well. I'm right there with you. But if we are being too positive, to the extent that we're missing things, that we are not being honest with ourselves, that we're not being proactive to solve and fix, well, then we need to change that.

Don't be saying we're good if we're not good, or don't be saying everything's good if not, everything is good.

So start opening up some space for some real conversations. This is something.

When I come across leaders who are uber positive, one of the things that I see is they tend to have team members that are struggling and they've been saying things, but that uber positive leader hasn't been listening. This happens a lot.

So if you're out there going, oh my gosh, she's talking about me. There's probably 400 of you saying the same thing.

Right? At the same time. Right? Because that is something that a lot of people have either been trained to do or, or have chosen to be positive in an attempt to lift everything else in the business.

The problem is, is that if we're not being honest, if we're not working on real problems and doing real check ins with team members and finding out what's working and what's not working, then what you'll find is eventually your team will just get burned up.

They'll just get tired, they will stop giving their all and they will start giving only, you know, a certain amount that keeps them feeling like they're sane.

So don't process everything through the rose colored glasses of everything's fine. Instead, dig in, make space, have real conversations, find out what's going on, what's working, what's not working, what needs to be fixed, what doesn't.

Now, is it possible you're going to have, you know, you might have that complainer on your team or that person that's just seems to be a little too negative?

Yeah, absolutely. What should you do about it? Fix it. Have conversations. If you're trying to be uber positive and you've got somebody who's being uber negative, then get in there and have discussions about what's acceptable and what's not acceptable.

That's okay. You can do that. You might find that they eventually have to leave the team, but don't convince yourself that positivity is going to save the day. It's not.

Get in there and lead. Get in there and do what you need to do.

Leading from Skill, Not Self-Awareness (00:09:09)

Third thing, you gotta stop leading just from skill and start leading from self awareness. Too many people do not lead from self awareness. They believe that their skill is enough.

If you are thinking that your competency is enough for you to get by, I'm gonna say that you can. Again, this is something you can do for quite a while, but at some point you're gonna discover blind spots.

At some point you're going to discover you don't have strengths in areas. You need to know that.

Now we need to spend time taking a hard look at listing out what you are strong at and what you're not, what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are.

I can tell you I don't live in my weaknesses. I hire people who are great in the areas that I'm not.

I don't keep trying to lift my weaknesses until I'm an expert. Now I did back in my 20s, I probably did that a lot. You know, teens and early twenties.

I tried to make every aspect of me great until one day I heard somebody say, just be great at what you're great at. And I was like, yeah, no crap, that's something I need to do. That's something I need to focus on.

Be great at what I'm great at. As I continued, I learned that I could hire people to do things that I was not good at. And that allowed me to stay really focused on my strengths and put them in their strengths.

I wasn't asking them to do what I do. I wasn't going to do what I'm asking them to do. Right. I put myself in a place of self awareness.

Where am I good? Where am I not? Now some of you out there are going, man, I'm good at everything. Well, all right, stick with that for a while. Wait till that comes and bite you in the butt.

Because it will. I don't pretend to be great. Can I do almost anything? Sure. Can I do it to the ability of somebody else? Sometimes I can do it way better than anybody else.

And a lot of times it takes me four times as long to do it as somebody who's skilled in that area. Doesn't mean that I can't get it done. Doesn't mean that I can't make it happen.

But at some point get over that thinking and start realizing, should I make it happen? I was having a conversation with somebody recently that I love greatly. And there's an opportunity for this person to go and make something successful.

And it's a fun thought. It would take a lot of effort and I know this person would be great at doing it. The question I ask the person is why? Look at what you're doing now.

Look at the direction you want your life to go in. Look at the adjustments you want to make. Why go do something and pour every bit of yourself into it. Is it to say that and this person didn't say that they would go do it, just to say that they could.

But the point that I'm making is, is you have to process. Why go do all of this effort? Is it just because I want to say that I could?

Folks, a lot of people, that's their leadership, they hold on to things for an incredibly long time so that they can say that they could do it. That's just got to go. That habit has got to change. Lead from your strengths, not from your blind spots.

Discover your blind spots and fill them with people who are great. Discover your weaknesses and bring people in who are great.

Example. I'm sure I've shared this at some point, but probably recently, but I had back in the days we used to do these 10,000 person arenas and all this kind of stuff.

And this was before they were just starting to get digital ticketing and stuff. But it was a mess.

I mean, it was a mess. So we were still, as we were doing these big events and just fun, having a blast. But we had people that were mailing out tickets.

And I remember I had to hire somebody on my team to mail out paper tickets, to put a little invoice in an envelope with some paper tickets or receipt, I guess I should say, and some tickets and mail those out.

And I remember coming by her desk one day and I just stopped, and she had these tubs, you know, these. I don't know if you guys know those. The white plastic tubs from the post office.

Tubs of all of these letters going out with all of these tickets. And I just went, man, I am so sorry. I know this is just a boring job, but it's got to be done.

And she goes, oh, I love it. I take these home and do them at night. I was like, what? And here's the funny thing.

The guy who has been teaching personality styles for decades walked by and saw something he would hate to do and just immediately assumed everybody would hate to do it.

But what had I done? I had hired the exact right person. The person who loved that process, the person that loved the consistency of that process, even to the point that she enjoyed taking them home at night.

I would not have seen that coming, right? But in the moment, I reverted into how I would feel about it, it was just a thought. I was walking by, and it was just one of those things that hit my head.

And if I'd have just spent two more seconds on it, it'd be like, nope, you got the right person for this, right? That's. We made this decision on purpose.

You have to realize that there are people who are a thousand times better at doing things than you are.

And if you're continuing to fill their role with your gifts and talents, you're wasting your money, you're wasting your time, and you're wasting their talent.

So do things through awareness. Get yourself out of just operating from your skills, and make sure that you're setting up stuff so that you can create opportunities for people.

Understand your DISC, understand your Values. Understand those of the people around you. Understand those that you. That you know.

Take a look at the role and ask yourself the question, what is the perfect fit for this role? Put that person in place and then rock on and continue to get more weaknesses off of your plate.

Delaying Hard Conversations (00:15:39)

Fourth thing, you gotta stop delaying tough conversations, guys. Tough conversations are exactly that.

They are tough. They are difficult. The problem is, the longer you delay, the longer you wait, then the more opportunity you're creating for things to just explode and it's unnecessary, right?

You've got to get to a place where you are tackling tough conversations. I'm not saying, you know, the moment something pops up, don't think, run.

What I'm saying is when you see that a difficult conversation is needed, must be had, then I want you to spend time walking through what's necessary.

Setting up that conversation for success, setting you up for success, making sure you've got all the right information, and then having the tough conversation.

If you've got people who keep missing deadlines, right, but you really like them, you don't want to ruin the relationship, you're friends with them, but they keep screwing up deadlines, what are you going to do?

Are you just going to keep allowing that or are you going to get in there and say, hey, help me to understand what's going on? Why are these deadlines getting missed? What's happening?

What can we do to fix it? What have you tried to do? All the things that are necessary, be very proactive to something that's happening instead of waiting until it explodes and then you're nothing but reactive, right?

That is something that has to change. You've got to lead by having better conversations. The sooner you do that. And so also understand this, I know nobody on your team wants to have a tough conversation either.

They don't want you to come and have a tough conversation with them.

However, if they are messing up and they're, you know, something is going wrong, they're probably decently aware of it and they may not know what to do and they're probably too scared to come talk to you about it.

So the sooner you get on it, the sooner you solve it, the sooner they can feel good about themselves and what they are doing and what they are trying to accomplish.

So think about it that way. Many times you're afraid of having the tough conversation because of how it's going to affect somebody. And yet it's, it just might be. And many times it is the very thing that helps them to become a better version of themselves.

Making Reactive Decisions (00:18:09)

So number five, you got to stop making reactive decisions.

If you have an old habit of letting urgency or people pleasing run the show, then I can promise you you are spending most of your time putting out fires.

You are spending most of your time being reactive and not proactive at all. So what you've got to do is you've got to start operating from vision, from, from purpose, from what your core values are from strategy, right?

So for example, imagine if every single time you know you're working on your strategy, the Q1 strategy is coming up let's say, and. And every time a client makes a new request, it just tanks the strategy.

What's happening with the client? What's happening with the team? What's happening with the process? Everybody's confused. Nobody understands why this happens. Progress stalls out. And it's all because we didn't have a good process.

Instead, we're reacting to a client having a request, or we're reacting to, you know, something that changed somewhere or something that, you know, went wrong or something we weren't expecting.

And we're reacting to it instead of proactively planning our strategy and sticking to it and then evaluating things as they come up and then asking the question, how does this fit into the strategy?

Does it fit into the strategy? Does it change anything? And if so, how do we do it? Do we do it quickly? Do we upset the apple cart? Do we confuse everybody?

Or do we put together a great plan in process to make it happen? So get clear on, let's just say, your top three priorities for your strategy moving forward, and build a filter around it. You know, things like, does this align with our mission?

You know, if there's a. If there's filters, like how we're going to handle problems when they come up, filters, like how we're going to handle new client requests as they come up, filters, like reevaluating where we are in a strategy on a consistent basis, right?

So that we don't just upset the apple cart. Everybody's confused, everybody's wondering what the heck just happened. Stop being so reactive.

The more proactive you can be, the more working ahead on that strategy, the more thinking through in getting to a place of understanding what might happen, what could happen, you know, what could affect the process.

The better your decision making will be, the less confusion your team will have. And part of that is digging in and finding out what the people on the front lines think.

What are they seeing? Are they seeing problems? Are they seeing things that are going to have a bad effect, a negative effect?

The more you focus on that team, the more information you'll get, the better proactive decisions you can make, the more you can calm the entire situation down.

So, folks, leadership isn't just about doing more. It's about becoming more intentional. In 2026, the leaders who win will be the ones who lead with clarity, not being controlling.

Action Steps (00:21:35)

So here's what I want you to do. Here's some action steps for you. I want you to pick one behavior you need to leave behind.

Pick one, just one. Out of these five that we talked about or something else that you're already aware of.

Pick one. Share it with a peer or a coach. Get accountability because accountability accelerates change. Account accelerates change.

The more you get somebody helping you and giving you a good push, not being abusive and destructive, but somebody who comes alongside and helps, then you will be amazed at how well you will move and how much you will get done.

Third thing is build a replacement habit for that bad old habit.

Don't just stop. Swap it out with something good. Swap it out with something positive now.

Additional Resources if you want more on this, go to chrislocurto.com/podcast and listen to episode 260 What Your Leadership Should Be, And What It Should NOT Be.

Next-Level Leadership LIVE Event (00:22:32)

Now. If you're serious about leading better in 2026, not just surviving but thriving, then I want you at the Next-Level Leadership LIVE event.

You'll get live coaching, strategic clarity, and a practical plan for becoming the kind of leader your team wants to follow.

Right now registration includes $500 off, but there's more special bonus just for committing now. When you register before December 31st, you'll also get free access to our exclusive video lesson Understanding Personality Styles.

This is one of the most practical tools we teach foundational for improving team communication, building trust and reducing conflict. So if you want stronger leadership and a more aligned team in 2026, this is the place to start.

Head to chrislocurto.com/liveevents to reserve your spots. Folks, leadership does not evolve by accident. It grows with intention.

Well folks, that is all the time that I have for you today.

I hope this was a very helpful episode for you as you go into the New Year thinking about your leadership, your leadership style, and the tools and resources you're going to use to make your you a better leader in your team.

Better leaders.

As always, take this information. Change your leadership, change your business, change your life and join us on the next episode.